


Not Easily Changed

by middlemarchingfic



Category: Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb, Fitz and the Fool Trilogy - Robin Hobb, HOBB Robin - Works, Tawny Man Trilogy - Robin Hobb
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Other, non-binary Beloved
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-30
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-15 08:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2223030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarchingfic/pseuds/middlemarchingfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Verity, my king, as far gone from the world as a man could be without true death. Bee, sitting waiflike and alone in the quarters of the woman who would have been my mother. If I chanced a visit down to the stables, I knew what heartache would greet me there. There would be no respite for me in a midnight hunt, for there was no wolf to run beside me. And the Fool. Oh, my Fool. I’d told Nettle I would stay, and I would keep my word. But would it always be like this, I wondered. Wading through memories, seeing naught but ghosts around me?"</p><p>Set after the events of _Fool's Assassin_, and presumably after the events of the new trilogy. FitzChivalry Farseer reluctantly returns to Buckkeep with his daughter, Bee, and endeavors to begin his life again on his own terms. Predictably, this is easier said than done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A Fitz/Fool fix-it fic (say that three times fast, go on, I dare you) that I'm writing to calm the well of ~*~feelings~*~ in me after finishing _Fool's Assassin_. My unending gratitude to varethinsilico of tumblr for her sweet beta skills.
> 
> I've kept details of Fitz and the Fool's rescue of Bee as vague as possible because this story is not about that adventure. I want to write a story that has at least a better than average chance of remaining (mostly) canon compatible after the _Fitz and Fool_ trilogy is concluded. (EDIT: This story is very much not canon-compliant!)
> 
> This story has no update schedule, but will receive updates periodically until it is complete. C/C and kudos are of course appreciated!

All roads in my life led back to Buckkeep. Would that I had accepted that long ago, I would have perhaps saved myself, and those I loved, a lifetime of heartache. But I have always been slow to learn my lessons. I am the Changer, but I am not easily changed. And for my intractability, I had nearly lost my daughter.

As I had lost the Fool. He was gone, and I could not let myself think of him. If I did, I would break.

My Bee sat before the hearthfire in the rooms that had long ago belonged to Lady Patience, her skinny knees hugged to her chest. Moonlight spilled through the gossamer drapes that hung from the windows and silvered my daughter’s white hair, while the firelight turned her skin to gold. I’d scarcely been more than a stone’s throw away from her since her rescue, yet in that time she’d never been further from my reach. I could sense her with the Wit and knew better than to touch her mind with the Skill, but my awareness of her was not in doubt. A different gulf yawned between us; and, very much as it had been with her mother, I knew not how to breach it. At least I now possessed the wisdom to question whether I should. Molly would have been proud of that.

My daughter’s ladies’ maid, Spry, had done an admirable job of making the room as accommodating as possible for Bee’s petite size, but Kettricken had bequeathed these chambers to my daughter for the security they offered, not practicality. Even with my room and Nettle’s just down the corridor, I felt something smaller would have been more appropriate. These were better suited to a grown woman than a child still recovering from a traumatic ordeal, and they had always been drafty. I picked up one of the blankets that had been folded and left to warm near the fire and gently draped it around her shoulders.

Bee all but vanished into the thick folds of the fabric. She shrugged into it and curled it around her small body like armor. I quested to her tenderly, and felt my heart break when firmly, decisively, she shut me out. Had I the will to push the matter, it’s possible I could have. I did not.

“I’m just down the hall,” I told her, hoarse despite myself. “If you need me.” As I had expected, she said nothing. I left quietly and closed the door behind me.

Nettle awaited me in the corridor, practically dressed despite the late hour. I felt her Skill, a barely restrained force of nature, along the edges of my consciousness. Her exertions over the last several months had grayed her face and frayed her controls, but I doubted anyone but those who knew her as well as I could read her exhaustion in her bearing. She was the King’s Skill Mistress, and conducted herself accordingly.

She was also my daughter. Whatever else had passed between us, however many times I had and would continue to disappoint her, I knew I had her love. Burrich at one time might have counseled me to prefer respect. But I understood now what a precious gift love was, especially when one has done nothing to deserve it.

“How is she?” Nettle asked of her sister, her eyes falling upon the closed door. She held her hands tightly clasped together in front of herself.

In truth I didn’t know, and I suppose it showed on my face. I cleared my throat. “She is much recovered from the journey, at least,” I replied, and that much I knew to be the truth. “She ate an acceptable portion of her dinner, and her lessons go well. Whatever else she feels now, she keeps it to herself.” To herself, I wondered sadly, or just apart from me?

The harsh lines of worry in Nettle’s face softened and I watched the edge of tension leave her shoulders. She didn’t lose her frown, but nodded. “She has been through an ordeal none of us can begin to comprehend. She will talk when she is ready, in time.” Even as she spoke the words aloud, I could feel as much as sense her doubt. Already we had waited for months. She reined it in expertly and, meeting my eyes, rested both her hands on my arm. “But she is safe now, Fitz. We’d do well to remember that, all of us.”

The Bastard’s pecksie child, safe in Buckkeep. I wanted to scoff, but as much as it chafed against my instincts, I reminded myself that Bee was taken not from within these sturdy castle walls, but from soft, remote, safe Withywoods. Buckkeep’s courtly intrigue which had defined the better part of my life--and my death--could not have been further away from my quiet existence with Bee in our valley estate. Still, our enemies found her, and even had I been present to fight for her, I am but one man. I would have been one more dead body in the snow.

In my heart, all I had ever wanted for Bee was her happiness and safety, and in my arrogance I had convinced myself that no one else but I, and I alone, could provide those things for her. Yet when the Fool had needed me, I had left her alone and vulnerable because I’d left myself with no alternative. From someplace deep inside me, I heard sage advice that surely was not mine. _Wolves aren’t meant to hunt alone. Open your eyes, little brother._

 _I have_ , I answered, but when I quested out into the night, I found nothing but empty wilderness and winter snow. There were no more wolves in Buckkeep.

I felt Nettle’s eyes on me and realized I’d been quiet for too long. I made my mouth smile, grim and closed, and took the first step towards her room. She fell into step alongside me, companionably quiet and steadfast. I could have let that silence linger between us, comfortable and without expectation. Our shared grief and trauma had mended much of what had been broken between us, and I recognized the wisdom in letting those old disputes rest. But one had to be unearthed, because I had come to a decision that pained me, even though I knew it was the only course I could take.

“You were right,” I admitted.

My daughter didn’t answer immediately, but I think she knew without asking what I intended to say. Still, politic, she gave me a bemused smile and answered with quiet confidence, “I often am. What about?”

“Bee. She should have come to Buckkeep when first you asked it of us.” Nettle waited, expectant, and I steadied myself for the rest. Speaking it would make it so and change our lives forever. “And I should have come back. I always should have come back.”

Nettle said nothing, but slowed to a stop and pulled at my arm to stop me as well. I had to look at her then, and was unprepared for the expression of mingled sadness, relief and joy I read in her features. Her hands, always stronger than they looked, like her mother’s had been, squeezed my arm.

“It won’t be like it was before.” This reassurance, a fierce whisper, before she put her arms around my shoulders and hugged me tightly as she hadn’t done since Molly’s death. “You have my word. I am sure you have the King’s word as well, but he will want to speak them to you himself.” When she let me go, she was smiling, and I wondered whether I saw a sheen of tears in her eyes, or if it was just a trick of the sconces on the stone walls. It is a puzzle to me that her temerity could so warm my heart while I knew also that I did not believe her. I wondered if she knew the true gravity of such a promise.

But I smiled because she smiled, and stood outside her door a moment longer after she disappeared inside and to bed. The keep slept deeply around me. Save for the guards at their posts, I was alone.

My path back to my chambers took me past Bee’s room. I stopped long enough to press my ear to the door but heard nothing. She had either taken herself to bed, or still sat before the fire with her eyes fixed on it. Reluctantly, I moved away, up the curved and drafty stairwell that would take me to my room. Fixed into the curvature of the stone passageway was a single narrow window looking out across the sea, and for a moment the sight of it, the smell of the salt on the air, brought a memory of Verity in his tower to me that was so vivid I had to catch my breath.

Verity, my king, as far gone from the world as a man could be without true death. Bee, sitting waiflike and alone in the quarters of the woman who would have been my mother. If I chanced a visit down to the stables, I knew what heartache would greet me there. There would be no respite for me in a midnight hunt, for there was no wolf to run beside me. And the Fool. Oh, my Fool. I’d told Nettle I would stay, and I would keep my word. But would it always be like this, I wondered. Wading through memories, seeing naught but ghosts around me?

At length I made myself turn away from the window. But I stopped just short of entering my room because the door was already ajar, and through it came the scent of apricots. Dried, I could tell, because of the season, but apricots nonetheless. A thin beam of warm yellow light undulated across the stone steps. Someone had woken the embers in the hearth.

I knew it was him before I opened the door, and felt a rush of pure joy at the sight of his back near the fire. The Fool, dressed in servant’s blue, sat a rickety chair beside a table with a basket on it, his spindly legs folded beneath himself and his eyes turned up towards a familiar tapestry fixed to the wall. I didn’t know who thought to move King Wisdom and the Elderling into my chambers; Chade, perhaps, and then I knew it with certainty. I hadn’t told him of my decision to stay, but I would not have put it past him to presume, and to know what the sight of that tapestry from my youth would convey to me. To him, the two of us would always be the King’s Men.

I could not be furious at the liberties my old mentor had taken, however, not right then. The Fool heard the door open, but did not turn to me immediately. He reached into a small basket of candied fruits he’d procured--how? his means of obscuring his identity to all continued to mystify me--collected a handful, then unfolded his legs from the chair and stood. He turned to me and met my eyes, his clear of disease and poison, the color of rich amber. Our coterie had mended him well, but I knew he would carry the marks of his abuse in the bones of his face forever.

He was beautiful to me even so, simply because he stood in my room alive and well, and did not lie dead in the tall grasses of Clerres where I’d been forced to leave him.

I stared at him, wide-eyed. I must have made some nameless noise of distress, or possibly he read my combined joy and unfathomable guilt in my features, for he shook his head and walked towards me. “Now, now,” he chided and stopped before me. He held out two of the apricots. “I’ll have none of that from you.”

I took the fruit and held it in my hands, but I could not look away from him. His amber eyes could see me clearly; his skin and hair the color of darkly varnished wood; his crooked nose; the whimsical corner of his mouth, which would always quirk oddly now after the beating he’d taken, but could smile again all the same. A trace of the makeup he’d worn to conceal his identity still dusted across one of the ragged scars that cut his expressive brow. Unthinking, I reached out my thumb to wipe it away, and watched the merriment leave his eyes, revealing something infinitely more precious in its wake. The Fool brought his hand up, slender still but hale and healthy, and knit his fingers through mine. He held my palm against his cheek.

I couldn’t breathe. Air caught in my throat when I tried, and I choked, “Fool,” as I gathered him into my arms and held him close. I buried a hand in his hair, my face in his neck. I heard him drop the apricots, but I didn’t care. “Oh, Fool. Beloved, I left you behind.”

His arms had a thin, wiry strength as he curled them around my shoulders. His fingers carded through my hair, mussing it. Slight as he was, I felt as though he cradled me, not the other way around. He trembled in our embrace, though he hid it well, and shushed me gently. I felt his voice as much as heard it. “Do you think I ever would have forgiven you if you had rescued me, and not her? No, Fitz, no. Don’t beg forgiveness from me. There’s nothing to forgive.”

I wept. I could not help it, and my soul ached for it, but with a sweetness akin to the relief of a taut muscle coaxed after too long into flexing again. The Fool held me for as long as I clung to him, and when at last I had regained some control over myself, he coaxed me gently into the chair by the fire. I sank into it willingly and leaned my weight against the table where the basket of apricots still sat. Their sweet smell tempted me and finally I took one, savoring it.

The Fool found another chair in a shadowed corner of my room, drew it up beside mine, and folded himself into his seat again. The light from the fire cast the harsh angles of his face into sharp relief. I watched him reach for an apricot and let the silence stretch between us. I felt raw from my outburst, but the quiet was like letting air get to a wound to help it heal. I needed it.

After a moment, I asked, “How?” and knew he would know what I meant.

He bent a knee up to his chest and wrapped his arm around it. He lolled his head at me, a smile in his eyes if not quite on his lips. “Does it matter how I managed it, if I am whole and here with you now?”

His words and the timbre of his voice sent familiar warmth curling through me. The wolf embraced the rightness of the feeling without thought, but I held myself back from it. My curiosity had not been assuaged. “You speak like this when you wish to hide something from me for my own good,” I told him. He looked away as I went on. “I don’t ask for details, Fool. Truly, it is enough for me that you came back. But don’t keep what happened a secret in order to spare my feelings. I’m not a child.”

He looked back at me, a glint in his eyes. “Not compared to some, perhaps,” he said dryly, and I scoffed. He smiled, then plucked another apricot out of the basket and examined it while he spoke. “Do you often think on what happened in Regal’s dungeons?” he asked softly.

The question pulled everything hard to port for me. My mouth went dry. “Not if I can help it.”

The Fool nodded.  “It is like that for me, with this. It was a torment, Fitz, and yet I survived. I escaped. I came back here.” He looked at me with unguarded eyes and I knew what he left unsaid. With his freedom he could have gone anywhere, but from Clerres he chose to make an arduous journey north back to the Six Duchies, to Buckkeep. To me.

How does one respond to such a demonstration of loyalty and love? The deepest part of my soul knew--but as I said, I have always been slow to learn my lessons. In that moment I felt _pulled_ to him, for as ever my Wit sense knew my heart long before my head. The wolf doesn’t chase his thoughts in circles. But I am not the wolf--not completely--and so I sat fixed to my chair, my mind furiously searching for the right words, the right way to feel, and came up uselessly with nothing.

At least my stymied silence did not surprise the Fool, and if I disappointed him he did not show it. He took pity on me with a small smile, popped the apricot he’d been holding into his mouth, then picked out another one. “Tell me how Bee fairs,” he said instead, and I was unsure whether to rue the change in subject, or be grateful to him.

I rubbed the line of my jaw and contemplated my reply. “She’s kept to herself these past two months,” I began and watched the fire. “Nettle says that she’s visited the Queen’s Gardens and that Riddle has taken her down to the stables a time or two to ride. Kettricken tells me she’s taken an interest in one of Verity’s old sextants and keeps it in her room. Her maid Spry assures me she attends her lessons, eats her meals, dresses herself well and bathes when she should. As to what she thinks and feels about any of it, I could not tell you. She eschews my company so completely that all I know of her I’ve been forced to discover second hand.”

The Fool had grown still and quiet in his chair, watching me. I wished he would speak some wit to allay my fears, but he had never been the kind of friend to tell me what I wanted to hear in lieu of what I needed. I took a breath. “She hates me completely, Fool, because I left you for dead. And Eda help me, but I can’t begrudge her those feelings. I’ve hated myself for it, too.”

“Stop.” The sharpness in his tone caught me off-guard. “I told you, I’ll have none of that.”

Exasperated, I demanded, “Then I should forget the sight of your lifeless body as I chose to leave you in that awful place?”

“Whither and whether you left me for dead, you had no choice. I can’t stop you from deluding yourself into believing that you did, but I beg you, I beg you to try.” He twisted in his chair and reached both hands across the table to take mine, clasping it between his. As ever his skin felt so cool to my touch, even marred as it now was by scars and calluses. “Please, try.”

He could not have begged for anything more impossible, but I could not deny him. I never could. “I make no promises,” I said softly and curled my fingers into his. “But I will try.”

He kept his eyes fixed on my face for a weighted moment as though trying to discern with his stare whether I meant what I said. At last the line of his brow softened and he smiled at me. He swept his thumb across my knuckles in a gentle, intimate caress, then let go of my hand and stood up. “I must away to bed,” he said and made a show of smartly straightening the blue jerkin he wore. “Candor must be at his post in the kitchens come the early morning.”

I parsed his intentions neatly. “Candor?” I repeated, incredulous.

“I can’t very well resuscitate Lord Golden. Candor will suffice, for now.” The Fool left me to wonder at his meaning and crossed the the shadows cast by the hearthfire, towards my bedroom door. “Goodnight, Fitz. Save some of the apricots for Bee.”

I got to my feet and took a step after him. “Wait,” I said. The Fool paused at my door, his hand on the latch, and turned his questioning amber eyes on me. “May I tell her that you’re alive?”

I saw him visibly start, watched the briefest flicker of indecision cross his features. It was no small request I made of him, for had he wanted others to know of his return, he wouldn’t have sought to come to me in disguise. But he nodded. “I will go with you, when you do.”

There were no words I could say to him that could adequately express my gratitude. His risk meant I might earn my daughter’s forgiveness, and I could ascribe no value to that gift. Looking at his slight figure in my doorway, I instead told him, “Goodnight, Fool.” He gave me one more smile, then slipped soundlessly out of sight.

 

That night I dreamed of the tall Clerres grass at dawn, of the Fool and Bee walking through it hand in hand to stand at my side. Next to me, Nighteyes stretched out his long limbs and shook out his coat. _This is a good life, little brother_ , he told me.

 _It is a good dream_ , I replied, _and too short for my liking_. Already I could feel the faint warmth of winter sunlight on my face, pulling me towards wakefulness. A gust of dream wind scattered the Fool and Bee away from me like so many dandelion seeds. Nighteyes trotted after them.

 _Then make it last_ , he said and raced towards the sun as it crested the horizon.

I woke slowly to the sight of a cold hearth and the basket of apricots, and smiled into my pillow.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bee Farseer grapples with her anger at her father, among other things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Fitz/Fool fix-it fic (say that three times fast, go on, I dare you) that I'm writing to calm the well of ~*~feelings~*~ in me after finishing _Fool's Assassin_. My unending gratitude to varethinsilico of tumblr for her sweet beta skills.
> 
> I've kept details of Fitz and the Fool's rescue of Bee as vague as possible because this story is not about that adventure. I want to write a story that has at least a better than average chance of remaining (mostly) canon compatible after the _Fitz and Fool_ trilogy is concluded.
> 
> My plan is to update this story weekly until it is completed. C/C and kudos are of course appreciated!
> 
> edit 9/4/14: many thanks to varethinsilico for helping me come up with a suitable name for Bee's maid. :) I have edited both chapters to reflect this change.

I hated my father.

The knowledge came upon me slowly. I did not know it when I was first brought to the castle and stuck in old, drafty rooms that smelled of mothballs and stale herbs. I did not know it as I curled into the too large bed that first night and watched as my father lit a candle for me as Mother used to do. I had not known it even on the journey home, for the act of walking and hiking and sneaking and stealing bits of sleep where we could left me too exhausted to think of things like misery and hate. But in the quiet of my rooms in Buckkeep, after suffering through the company of others to get through my daily meals and lessons, I had too much time to think, and to mourn. My anger festered, and that is when I knew I hated him.

I also knew that I could not share this knowledge with anyone, for then they would be upset and demand an explanation from me that I did not want to give. My reasons were straight forward, but the telling of them was not. It was still so easy for the words to twist and tumble together in my mouth and come out garbled and unclear. I did not want to speak, anyway. I wanted to yell, to cry, to beat my fists against my father until he hurt as badly as I had when he left the beggar--my father had called him the Fool--behind to die all alone. But I was small and weak, and would hurt myself long before I could hurt him. So I hurt him the only way I could, with silence, with rejection.

I had not expected to feel worse after each success.

Still he came to my room each morning after my ladies’ maid, Spry, had seen me dressed in clothes I didn’t like and my thin hair combed and pulled into a skinny braid that made my face look like an egg. Each morning he stood in my doorway as I was presented to him, and smiled his strained, threadbare smile at me. “Good morning, Bee,” he would say. “Will you come down to breakfast with me?” And I would look away from him and stare at the wall, or the fire, or any other little thing in my room, until I heard his heavy footfalls move away and my door closed. Sometimes my maid scolded me, sometimes she did not. So it went each morning, and each morning I felt even more lonely than the last.

I could only get away with so much misbehavior before I invited the ire of my older sister. She had taken on the mantle of disciplinarian that my father had never truly embraced, and while I resented her for it, I did not hate her. I thought her dull and tiresome and relentlessly condescending, but in that respect she was no different from most of the other adults who spoke to me. Mother had not. My father had not. The Fool had not. But Mother and the Fool were dead, and I had resolved to hate my father. I also resolved to be on my best behavior always, so as to be left alone as much as possible. And for two months after I was brought to Buckkeep, I was successful.

Then one morning after Spry had pulled my winter dress straight and tugged my hair into order, it was my sister who came to my bedroom door, not my father.

“Good morning, Bee,” she said. She smiled civilly and held out her hand to me. “We’re taking breakfast together in the Queen’s Garden this morning. Come along.”

I regarded her suspiciously and did not move. My sister was dressed as she always was, in flowing robes that did not quite cover her pragmatic leggings and boots, and looked far more elegant to me than any of court ladies I’d seen floating down the halls in their fancy dresses. Her hair had been braided into a single black plait that fell down past her shoulders. She had all of our mother and father’s coloring and features that I would never have, and none of their familiarity, and I did not want to go with her.

Timidly, I said, “I eat breakfast in my room.” I loathed how mousy I sounded. I wanted to lift my chin and square my shoulders and stand as straight as she did, and defy her with the same strength that she carried just by standing still with her hands folded. But my sister’s thoughts could spill into my own as totally as my father’s had. I was scared to stand too close to her, let alone allow her to touch me.

She pursed her lips together thinly and frowned. “You eat breakfast in your room every other morning.” She paused when I did not move. “Bee, don’t make me ask you again.”

I don’t know why I obeyed her. I knew from my father’s old letters and scrolls that my sister had the Farseer magic called the Skill which could compel a person to do something against their will, but if she had used that magic on me, I would have felt it keenly. The authority in her voice was enough to make my wooden legs obey. I shuffled towards her and stared sullenly at my shoes as I went. If I must go, I would make sure she knew with every step I took that I did so unwillingly.

My sister was not as susceptible to my manipulations as my father. When I walked towards her, she nodded and said, “Good,” briskly. She turned and strode with practical utility from my room, and I was forced to abandon my skulking pace in order to keep up with her.

I had been to the Queen’s Garden several times since coming to Buckkeep. The King’s mother had shown it to me one afternoon after my lessons were finished. My father called her Kettricken of the Mountain Kingdom. She was kind to me and had hair that looked almost like mine, but thicker and more beautiful, like a horse’s waving golden mane intermingled with strands of silver. She did not speak to me with the same belittling condescension that my sister did, but sometimes when she did not think I could see her, she looked at me the way Revel had sometimes looked at a bent silver spoon in the china cabinets back at Withywoods. She frightened me, and so after that meeting, I took pains to avoid her.

Breakfast was waiting under covered dishes for us on a simple iron and glass table when my sister and I arrived in the garden. Outside the stone flooring and statues were covered with clean white snow, but the wind was gentle and overhead the sun shone brilliantly down on us. I found that I was warm enough with just my cloak. My sister seated herself at the table and motioned for me to do so as well, and only when I obeyed did she remove the coverings on the dishes. The sight of succulent sausages and eggs and the smell of fresh bread made me forget my decision to be as cool and aloof to her as possible, and I quickly began to put food onto my plate with only the most furtive of glances at my sister to see whether she looked at me.

She did not, save for a few occasional glances while we ate, along with an inquiry about the food. Did I like it? I did, thank you. Otherwise, all was quiet between us until at last there was nothing left on my plate, my warm, milky tea was gone, and I was left to sit drowsy and content and full with the sun warming my face. A relaxed yawn escaped me before I could suppress it and I was too late to cover my mouth with my hands to hide it.

My sister still held a cup of tea but called a servant over to collect the rest of the dishes from the table. I watched the remnants of our meal cleared away with sleepy eyes until I realized that my sister was watching me. I sat up as straight as she did and brushed crumbs off of my skirt, but she shook her head and waved a hand at me mildly. “There’s no need for that. We’re not dining with the King. You may relax.”

That was not, I noticed, the same as permission to leave. I asked anyway. “May I go down to the stables now?”

“You may not,” she replied and regarded me levelly. After a moment, she put down her teacup and leaned her forearms against the table. “Bee, why do you avoid our father? And don’t deny it,” she added before I could tell her the lie I had prepared for just this occasion, “because I will know you are being dishonest.”

Mother had often told me that I should begin with the simplest part of the truth if the whole of it was too big to describe. The truth as I knew it was not too big, but it was made of many smaller truths that I could not share with anyone else. The beggar was at its heart. He had been my friend, but more than that, he had been different just like me. I had so many questions for him that no one else could answer; what made us the way we are, what did our visions mean? Would I ever grow up to look like my sister? Would I ever get to be normal? No one in Clerres had cared about these things, and they had not cared about me, either. Or the beggar, I remembered. The beggar, the Fool; I knew he had these names. He was my father’s friend, who loved him. He had come back to Clerres with my father to save me, and my father, who had called him Beloved, had left him to die.

I had unthinkingly balled up my fists in a length of my skirt and twisted the fabric until it would twist no more. My sister sat across from me waiting for my answer, and I knew she would not let me go until I gave her one. “Because,” I began and knew already how childish I sounded, “I’m angry at him.”

She looked at me archly. “You’re angry at him,” she repeated my words back to me tediously. I nodded. “Have you told him this?”

I nodded again. “He knows why I’m angry,” I said and looked down at my skirt. I let go of the crinkled fabric and tried to smooth it straight again.

My sister sighed in that way that adults do when they think they know something children do not. I bristled and looked towards the garden door. “Bee,” she began and would not go on until I looked back at her. “You must speak with our father about whatever he has done to make you angry and make amends. Things between you cannot go on the way they have been, it’s intolerable. Do you understand?”

Had she slapped me, the pain of it might have shocked me less. I stared up at her, jaw slightly agape. My anger at her welled up inside me all at once. “Why?” I demanded. My words came sluggishly and jumbled together, which only served to make me angrier. “Why do I have to do this? He should make amends first, not me!”

“Would that he could, but you make that impossible when you won’t speak a word to him.”

I spitefully wondered if she knew that because she’d been sifting through my thoughts without my knowing it, then realized much to my own surprise that I had not once, throughout the whole of our time together this morning, felt the overwhelming force of her mind pressing into mine. Startled, I stared at her and let my awareness of myself stretch enough to sense her. I found the walls of her mind tightly barred against mine, sound as the hull of the ships I could see at anchor from my bedroom window when I looked through my spyglass.

My sister sat up from the table abruptly. I knew I’d made a mistake and tried to draw my awareness back to myself, but going backward felt like trying to stop a wagon from rolling downhill. I was still struggling to gather the strands of my thoughts back into myself when she asked, “Where did you learn to do that?” But I could not answer her. My thoughts had become too many spools of yarn coming undone in my arms, and when I grasped at one thread, an enticing current ensnared ten more and drew them away from me.

The world grew indistinct in front of my eyes and I listed in the garden chair. Sitting up straight seemed an unimportant thing to worry about. I closed my eyes.

I did not sleep. I drifted in a stillness deeper than sleep, but distantly I became aware that I was being gathered back together with extreme tenderness. Someone moved through the dark around me, plucking up the pieces of me like bits of kindling for a wood pile, and as I was sewn back together again, I felt the softness of a pillow under my cheek, a quilt drawn up to my chin, and a feather bed beneath me. I could smell the hot tallow of a lit candle, and when I opened my eyes again, I discovered I was in my bedroom and moonlight shone through my window. I wasn’t alone. My father sat hunched over in a chair by my bed, his face in his hands and his head bowed. I could feel his mingled guilt and grief as it flung itself against the the foundering walls bracketing his Skill magic. Kettricken stood beside him with a hand on his shoulder. At my doorway I heard Riddle’s voice speaking in hushed tones to someone out in the corridor. My hand felt warm, though, and when I groggily looked at it, I realized it was held in my sister’s grasp.

My sister, Nettle, seated on the bed beside me, looked at my eyes as though she gazed through them, through me completely, to some distant place far from my rooms in Buckkeep. She was pale and haggard with sweat across her brow and in her hair. In an instant she blinked and I knew she saw me as I was, and I saw her as I hadn’t before. I remembered my father’s Skill scrolls and knew immediately that I had been in very great danger. I also knew that my sister had saved me from it.

She breathed out unsteadily, but patted my hand in her grasp. “Found her,” she announced in a weak, winded voice. Then, looking at me again, she added a little wryly, “Don’t do that again.”

“Do what?” I asked and barely heard myself. My voice sounded like nothing at all, just a breathy whisper of air.

My father was immediately at my bedside. “Bee?” he said, his voice very soft. He took my hand from my sister as Kettricken and Riddle both helped her to her feet. I looked over his shoulder and watched Riddle put his arm around her waist to steady her. She leaned gratefully into his side, but spoke to my father. “She’ll be all right, Tom,” she said. “She just needs rest.”

“Yes, as do you,” Riddle observed, but my sister waved away his concern. She kept her eyes on my father. “You told me she had no talent for the Skill,” she said.

“I said I did not think she had the gift, not that I knew for certain.” He tore his gaze away from my face reluctantly to look back at my sister. “I also told you she possessed sensitivity to it, even so. How did this happen?”

“Tom, please,” Riddle interjected quietly. I sank back into the pillows and looked between them. Something was transpiring that I did not fully understand, but the waves of ugly feeling emanating from my father and my sister churned my breakfast in my stomach.

My sister looked as though only her grip on Riddle’s shoulder and his arm around her waist kept her standing upright, but her eyes were hard. “You should have let me make that determination for myself.”

“I should have?” my father countered. “Nettle, until last year you thought her a simpleton who could not speak or write her own name.”

“A fate that nearly befell her today! Do you realize how lucky we were that I was present when this talent of hers manifested itself? You did not see what I saw, you have no concept of what could have happened to her.”

But he did, and I did, too, for I had read the memoirs he’d penned and kept hidden in his secret study back home in Withywoods. I saw the stricken look on my father’s face and felt my hatred towards him wither inside me. I could not forgive him, but I could not help but love him, either. Wordlessly, I squeezed his hand and willed him to look at me instead of my sister. I desperately wanted their fight to end.

Kettricken stepped between them. “That,” she said decisively, “is more than enough.”

My sister’s fierce stare seemed unrelenting. When she closed her eyes and drew in a breath to steady herself, however, I saw clearly how much of her strength rescuing me from my own folly had cost her. She thinned her lips and shook her head once. “She must receive training,” she said as much to Kettricken as to my father. “That cannot be up for debate. It’s for her own safety.” Her tone, at least, had grown more gentle, but it was hard to tell if that was her intention or if she simply lacked the strength to keep fighting.

My father looked down at my small pale hand in his. I could read his fatigue easily in the lines on his face and his bloodshot, hooded eyes. He nodded once. “Once she’s feeling better.”

“This is a discussion for another time,” Kettricken said. “We have all had an incredibly long day. Some of us,” she added and looked between my sister and myself, “longer than others.”

Riddle smiled at me. “Rest well, Bee. Tom,” he added to my father, then turned with my sister to walk carefully towards my bedroom door. My sister looked fragile as she leaned against him with each step. Before they crossed the threshold into the corridor, she looked back at me once. Then they were gone.

My father didn’t watch them leave, and he didn’t look up when Kettricken touched him on his shoulder, either. “We will speak tomorrow, Fitz,” she told him gently. She looked at me, her gaze both gentle and appraising, and then left as quietly as the others had. When she closed my bedroom door and I could no longer hear her footsteps echoing down the corridor, I knew that we were alone.

With the fractious tension gone from the air my body reminded me that I was past the point of exhaustion. I stubbornly resisted sleep’s pull and looked to my father. He still knelt at my bedside holding my hand, but I knew that he could not bear to meet my eyes lest I turn away from him again. To me he had not seemed so old, so broken, since Mother died, and this time I knew with certainty that it was all my fault. Anguish tightened my chest and my throat.

A cold gust of wind whistled through a crack in my partially open window and rattled its frame. My father took a breath and sat back from my bedside. He squeezed my hand once, then let it rest atop the downy quilts and coverlets that someone had tucked around me while my mind had drifted, lost in the pull of Skill magic. “I’ll make fast the window,” he said out loud, speaking to himself as much as to me, and pushed himself heavily to his feet. I watched him walk to the window and secure the latch, then adjust the curtains that did not need adjusting, and still he could not look at me.

My words would come out all clumsy and wrong but I had to speak anyway. I would be brave. “Papa,” I whispered, and to my horror I realized that I was already crying. “Papa, I’m sorry.”

I don’t know why I thought my words would not reach him. How could I have doubted him? My father was at my side again in two long-legged strides that I could never hope to match, and I found myself gathered up for the second time that day, his arms strong and secure around me. I hid my face in his chest and let the fabric of his jerkin soak up my tears. My father rocked me gently. “I’m sorry, too,” he told me softly. “I fear that is all you will remember of me when I am gone. Your hopeless father and his constant need to beg your pardon.” His words ended raggedly and he took another breath to steady himself. “But I will do better by you from now on, Bee. I will try. I will do my very best.”

We sat together that way for what seemed to my mind a very long time. I did not feel better, but did feel lighter, and the peaceful pull of true sleep made my eyelids and all my limbs so heavy. But I wasn’t finished, I could not sleep yet, and so very weakly I thumped my small fist against his chest, just enough to get his attention. “I’m still angry at you,” I said into his jerkin.

My father stroked my hair and admitted, “I’m angry at me, too.” He gently eased me back onto my bed and drew the blankets around me. “We can talk about it tomorrow. All right?”

I have some vague, fuzzy recollection of telling him, “All right,” too, but within seconds of my head touching the pillow, my exhaustion caught up with me. I closed my eyes and slept dreamlessly.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz works through what Bee's talent for the Skill means for their future at Buckkeep, while his relationship with the Fool begins to change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Fitz/Fool fix-it fic (say that three times fast, go on, I dare you) that I'm writing to calm the well of ~*~feelings~*~ in me after finishing _Fool's Assassin_. My unending gratitude to varethinsilico of tumblr for her sweet beta skills.
> 
> I've kept details of Fitz and the Fool's rescue of Bee as vague as possible because this story is not about that adventure. I want to write a story that has at least a better than average chance of remaining (mostly) canon compatible after the _Fitz and Fool_ trilogy is concluded.
> 
> I have just begun graduate school, so updates from hereon out will be slower. C/C and kudos are of course appreciated!

As soon as Bee was asleep, the temptation to unravel overwhelmed me. I held myself back from it with effort.

I took pains to remind myself of what had not happened to my daughter: she was not a suffering prisoner in the possession of religious zealots; she was not so traumatized by her ordeal that she could not look after herself; she had not succumbed to the elements on our journey home to the Six Duchies; and in spite of my extraordinary ignorance, she had not lost herself to the Skill as so many other inexperienced novices had before her. I drew little comfort from these truths, but that was not their purpose. They provided me with just enough sure footing to stand on, but that was crucial. Without a clear head, I would be of no use to Bee at all.

Fatigue gnawed at me. I should have gone back to my chambers but my thoughts were still too restive for sleep. Instead I sat a silent vigil at my daughter’s bedside, watched the pitched shadows gradually give way to the slate colored ceiling as predawn light filtered in through her window. Nettle had been right, as she so often was. Bee would have to receive training in the Skill, the magic so coveted by the Farseer line. It was less uncommon than folk thought for the Skill to manifest itself outside the royal line, among ordinary folk as well as nobility, but with each occurrence, speculation would abound. Justifiably, in the case of my daughter, whose fey, otherworldly looks already made her the object of courtly gossip and, though my blood boiled to acknowledge it, ridicule as well.

I took an internal tally of all the faces who had come in and out of Bee’s room during her daylong convalescence; Kettricken; Nettle and myself; the King had not come but had sent a page with a missive; Riddle had accepted it. Riddle had been indispensable. He had intercepted every attempt to come into her chambers for any reason and turned away all but those he knew I trusted. Chade had not come, but I did not for a moment take that to mean that he was unaware of what had transpired. Perhaps if I was very lucky, my old mentor knew only that Bee had suffered a spell of poor health. But perhaps not. He was a part of Nettle’s Coterie now.

I closed my eyes and let my forehead rest against the glass. I could not prevent him from knowing. It was old instinct, I told myself, that made me wary. Surely Chade now had his pick of more capable Farseer bastards to choose from, should he decide one of us must serve the crown again. That last thought rang bitterly in my mind, and I chastised myself for it. Those old resentments served no one. And whatever else might be said about my daughter, what other insults spiteful children and busybody nobility might hurl at her for her differences, she would never endure that awful pain unique to the Farseer bastard. Molly and I had seen to that.

Someone tapped three times on the door, polite and deferential. Spry, I assumed, likely come to feed wood to the fire so that the room stayed warm while my daughter slept. It was a timely interruption, for while it was too early in the morning to hope for a restful night’s sleep, I could probably manage an hour or two until the rest of the keep woke and I would be expected to make an appearance in the Great Hall. I left my daughter sleeping in her bedroom, entered the still parlor, and opened the door to admit her maid.

It was Candor who stood just clear of the doorway. He balanced a tray supporting a silver candlestick, a pot of fragrant herbal tea, and two cups deftly with one hand, while he held the other behind his back. I stared at him. His form was impeccable, and had I not seen the undisguised worry in his bright eyes, I might not have known him for my Fool at all. I felt my heart drop. Would I have known him at all if I had walked past him earlier this very day?

I opened my mouth to speak, but he made a quick, subtle movement with his chin and eyes that bade me quiet. “Begging your pardon for the early hour, my lord,” he spoke softly, and his accent could not have been more tried and true Buck Duchy, “but the kitchens have sent this up for the wee Lady Badgerlock, for when she has her breakfast. Like to soothe her spirits.”

I should not have been so surprised. The Fool always bid us play roles across from each other. As I often did, I followed his lead. “Bring it in, then,” I replied and let irritability slip into my tone when I glimpsed a guard at his post not twenty feet away from us. “Though the hour is most inconvenient.”

“I know, my lord,” the Fool replied, “thank you, my lord,” and came into the room. I closed the door behind him. He looked so cowed by my words that I was on the cusp of offering him an apology when he dropped his servile demeanor and deposited the tray directly into my hands. While I struggled to steady my new burden, the Fool moved away from me. I watched him cross the parlor on silent feet until he stopped, deer-like, just short of my daughter’s bedroom door. In profile, his face was wrought with open anxiety.

I set the tray down on a side table near the hearth and went to stand beside him. Through the doorway my Bee slept on undisturbed, small and white as a kitten amongst so many pillows and blankets. Safe. “Fool,” I whispered and rested my hand against the slim angle of his elbow. “She’s all right. Just sleeping, now.” I pulled gently. “Come away, else we wake her.”

He bent towards me like a reed, then reluctantly complied. I kept my hand on his elbow as I guided him over to one of the chaises in the parlor. I could have let him go, but now that I touched him, I found it difficult to stop. We sat close together on the chaise, and the Fool frowned at his hands folded in his lap. “One of the serving boys came down to the kitchens and told us all that she’d collapsed at breakfast,” he said. “I tried tried to come up with a tonic, some hot towels, just some excuse to get a glimpse of her to see her state for myself, but Riddle wouldn’t let me past the door.”

He wouldn’t have, I realized, because he would not have seen the Fool, as he’d known him, in Candor’s ruddy complexion. Like Bee, like the rest of our close circle, he believed that the Fool had died in Clerres. I was heartsick over the Fool’s exclusion, but revealing his presence at Buckkeep to anyone without his permission would surely have been a violation of his privacy. More than that, it could put him in danger.

“We needed as few interruptions as possible,” I said quietly and felt how inadequate my words were even as I spoke them. “I know Riddle would have let you through, had he recognized you.”

The Fool nodded, then looked away from his folded hands to meet my eyes with his. Their vivid amber color reminded me acutely of how close we were to each other. My Wit sense pulled at me again, but I ignored it. This was not the time. _The time for what?_ the wolf asked, amused. _At least you no longer pretend it is not there._

“Fitz.” I felt the coolness of his fingers against my hand where I still held his elbow. “What happened?”

Fate has caught us up again, I could have said, and it would have been the larger truth that I could not speak just yet. I dropped my eyes from his to look at our hands together instead. The sight gave me some comfort. “Bee is Skilled. It should scarcely come as any surprise to us, but all the same, it did. At breakfast Nettle says she felt Bee touch her mind, and I can only assume that she… struggled, to return to herself afterwards.” I could not bear to think on how she must have felt during that experience.

The Fool curled his fingers around my hand. I steadied myself and went on. “Nettle was the one to bring her back. She needed quiet and privacy to focus. Perhaps we should have taken them somewhere else for Nettle to perform her work, somewhere with less through traffic…” I trailed off, speculating about decisions in the past that could not be changed, then shook my head. “The worst is behind us. She sleeps now, and when she wakes she won’t be at any risk of anything more threatening than boredom as she recovers her strength.”

I could not tell if my words had placated the Fool, or if seeing Bee for himself had accomplished that already. He nodded and sat comfortably beside me even so, studying my face as I spoke until at last there was nothing more of the ordeal to tell. I could see something in his eyes and the set of his jaw, then, an impulse to action that he did not act on. I assumed that I would be left to wonder at the meaning of his look, but as he so often did, the Fool surprised me. “Should I ask for your pardon, Fitz?” he asked me quietly. I stared at him, baffled and uncomprehending, until he looked away. “For this protective instinct I possess towards a child who isn’t mine. I worry I have insinuated myself too completely into a role that I am ill-suited for.”

Perhaps the only strangeness was that I had never once thought to consider it so. Even having my attention drawn to the Fool’s dedication to Bee did not change my feelings. I shook my head. “Fool, if we had found the son that prophecy claimed was yours, I know for certain I would behave no differently towards him.”

Decades of intimate friendship rested between us, and even so, I could parse only so much of the Fool’s enigmatic smile, least of all when he would not look at me. He made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “Not even a Prophet would declare such a thing as certain. Though Prophet and Prophecy both have foretold your role as sacrifice, the pebble ground down by the wheel, with such frequency that I should not be surprised to see you willing to die for a Fool’s false hope.” He grew quiet, considering, and his smile faded. “We play our roles even so, even after they are finished.”

I could not decide how I felt and teetered between dread and anticipation. “What was your role?” I asked, but it was a question with an answer I already knew, at least in part.

The Fool smiled at me sadly. “To break you, Catalyst. And to love you.” He examined our hands in the brief spell of silence that followed while I struggled, again, to think through the curling, heady warmth and lightness that filled me at his words. Then he gently slipped his fingers and arm free of my grip and stood up. “And now, to leave you.”

In my past I have had limbs break with less abruptness, and less pain. I felt shattered. The aching, debilitating grief that had been with me since our last grisly parting in the Clerres fields leaned its full weight against my heart. I was on my feet in an instant and caught his arm again. Not roughly, just long enough to stop him, and then stiffly I made myself let go. “You can’t,” I all but begged him. “Not again--I could not bear it.”

“But I must,” he said with wounding nonchalance. “Lord Golden may have delighted in inviting scandal, but Candor is a modest, scrupulous man. He must away to bed before anyone wonders at the time he’s spent in your company this evening.” The Fool looked at me quizzically for only a moment longer before understanding lit in his eyes. His face grew still, his eyes gentle. “Forgive me,” he said softly. “I spoke without considering my words.”

I felt color flush my cheeks at my mistake, and yet my fear clung to me stiflingly, like cold that bit straight to the bone. His words could not unmake the bruises on my heart, for they carried no reassurances. No, perhaps he would not leave tonight, or the next, but his departure from my life again felt inevitable as the tide. Knowing it would not happen now brought only a modicum of comfort; his presence near me tonight was a reprieve from pain, not its cure. But I entertained the fleeting possibility that I might have the balm for it. Loss--and the threat of losing again--has the power to make clear what was previously mired in a fog of doubt, of fear, of indecision.

I should have let him go. The longer we delayed, the greater the risk that we might compromise his new role, or wake Bee, or arouse suspicion from the guard in the corridor. Spry would surely be by at any moment to tend to the dying fire in the hearth. At my enduring silence, the Fool had withdrawn from me; not physically, but with his eyes, his thinly pressed lips. A sensible man would shelve his worries for another time, come back to them with a fresh head not beleaguered by a day of wearying uncertainty. The Wit pulled at me again; a sensible man would say, no, this is not the time.

Nighteyes’ voice came to me, mildly affronted. _Wolves are sensible, too._

“Will you stay for good?” I asked and took hold of his hand. The stillness of the parlor around us made his widened eyes and the catch of air in his throat impossible to miss, and his reflexive grip on fingers made me bold. “It need not be in Buckkeep, nor even Buckkeep Town if the city is no longer to your liking. There are little villages and hamlets scattered throughout Buck Duchy where you could go instead. You could start your life anew as Candor however you see fit. Your woodworking and toy making gifts are pliable trades anywhere. But please. Please, wherever you go, let it be some place I can follow.”

How his face could be so blessedly open and vulnerable, and yet simultaneously so inscrutable, I will never understand. Through our clasped hands I could feel the Fool’s pulse fluttering birdlike under my touch. His large eyes could not stay on mine for long, but flitted across my features finding purchase in no single place. I could see him struggling to speak, but the words would not come. “Fitz,” was all he managed, just my name, quiet in the air between us. The words would not come to me, either, though there was still so much, so much I must tell him; Fool, I have been the fool; Fool, I’ve thought of you always; Fool, Beloved, please don’t disappear again.

I gave up on speaking past the swell of emotion aching in my chest. Instead, I framed the Fool’s shocked face between my hands and kissed him. I felt him go rigid, his mouth at first lax and unresponsive. But then his fingers tremulously curled into the fabric of my jerkin and he drew himself closer to me, into my arms, his skin cool against mine.

I remembered the softness of his mouth, the pointed end of his narrow chin against my jaw, from the last time he had kissed me in the Elderling’s Stone Garden after all that had transpired at Aslevjal. But I had not sought intimacy with him then, and the memories he had returned to me through that searing embrace had chased all other thoughts from my mind. Now, I found myself overwhelmed by my desire to hold him, felt it burning me up as it had not since I was a young man first discovering what it meant to show love for another person--for Molly--through the strength, the gentleness, of my touch. I threaded my fingers through the soft hair at the nape of his neck and marveled at the sinewy angle created by his throat and slender shoulder when he tilted his head into my hands. I tasted the tang of blended ochre on his mouth and drew back just enough to draw my thumb across his lower lip. The pad of my finger came away a fraction darker, redder, but when I kissed him again I tasted his skin, and not the pigment he used for his disguise.

But except for our kiss, except for the tight, trembling grip his fingers had on my jerkin, the Fool did not touch me. I did not register this detail at first, caught up as I was in the extraordinary newness of our bright flash of intimacy. Then abruptly, the Fool turned his face from mine and drew in a deep, shuddering breath. He did not let go of my jerkin so much as push me bodily away, and turned in the same step, hand over his mouth, to stride towards the parlor door.

I stood, numbly reeling from shock with my jaw slack. I saw him double back to collect the tray of tea, his brow bent in a consternating frown. “What is wrong?” I asked him when I managed to get my voice to work. The Fool shot me an unreadable look and said nothing, but when he turned with his tray towards the door again, my fear spiked. I stepped after him and incautiously demanded, “Tell me you are not leaving now, because of this.”

I recognized immediately that I’d made a mistake. The Fool could still cut sharply with his stare when he chose to, and I faltered under the force of it. “Leave? Leave Buckkeep? Where is it you imagine I will go at this hour, garbed as I am?” I was unprepared for the combined hurt and disappointment I found in his gaze when I met his eyes. It shamed me. The Fool was no coward; I had given him no warning before I irrevocably changed the nature of our relationship, but he would not flee from it. Perhaps I had feared that possibility because, were our situations reversed, I would have done so myself. That was an ugly discovery to make after such a long day, but truth is merciless.

Helplessly, I said, “I’m sorry,” but even as I spoke I recalled Chade’s warning to me about those words. I wondered if I would one day exhaust the Fool’s capacity for forgiveness.

Whether I would in the future, it appeared that I had not today. The Fool’s hard gaze gentled, and he nodded once. “I know you are,” he said. He shifted the tray onto one hand. “We’ll speak soon, Fitz. But not today. You have more pressing matters occupying your attention.” He looked one more time towards Bee’s bedroom, then slipped out the door and closed it neatly behind him. His footfalls carried him away down the stone corridor, leaving me alone in the middle of Bee’s parlor to contemplate magnitude of what I had just done.

My thoughts had already begun to chase themselves in circles again, and there was a cold pit of doubt in my gut. How presumptuous I had been to assume that the Fool’s feelings for me were anything other than a relic of our history, rather than a defining characteristic of our present. Was it so surprising that, as my feelings had changed, his had as well? Once, I had so callously rebuked him for caring for me that I had nearly cost myself his trust and friendship. How this change in me must have overwhelmed him; and I had thought only of my own heart.

I made my restive legs move back to Bee’s room long enough to peek in on her. She slept peacefully, one small foot sticking out from beneath her nest of blankets. I tucked her in gently, then left her chambers for my own in hope of achieving a few dim hours of rest before breakfast. I undressed myself and lay down. I went through the motions of closing my eyes, of trying to quiet my thoughts until sleep could come. But my mind could think only of the Fool, of our kiss, and how he had turned away from me afterwards.

The overcast of dawn gave way to a crisp, clear winter morning. I had not slept and felt the lack deep in my bones, but I could not stay in bed. I splashed some water on my face from the basin near my bedside, combed my hair into a tail, and had finished pulling on my clothes for the day when a page arrived with a message for me. I saw faces from my youth in his mousy complexion; Dirk, Kerry.

“Lord Chade would like to see you, sir,” the boy said.

Chade. My exhaustion tripled suddenly. “Thank you,” I replied.

The boy left me standing at the threshold of the corridor. I could not prevent myself from dreading my conversation with Chade and what it might mean for Bee, but neither could I ignore his summons. I left my chambers and followed the winding stretch of hallways that took me to his study.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bee begins her Skill training.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Fitz/Fool fix-it fic (say that three times fast, go on, I dare you) that I'm writing to calm the well of ~*~feelings~*~ in me after finishing _Fool's Assassin_. My unending gratitude to varethinsilico of tumblr for her sweet beta skills.
> 
> I've kept details of Fitz and the Fool's rescue of Bee as vague as possible because this story is not about that adventure. I want to write a story that has at least a better than average chance of remaining (mostly) canon compatible after the _Fitz and Fool_ trilogy is concluded.
> 
> \--
> 
> A thousand, thousand apologies for how late this update is! My degree program is pretty rigorous, but this chapter fought me every step of the way. I can't thank varethinsilico enough for her unending patience (and persistence) as a beta.
> 
> Also, I can't begin to tell you all how much your comments and kudos have meant to me. Thanks so much for sticking with this story, and I hope to have another chapter up for you before too long!

I was wrong. I did dream after all.

I dreamed of my father, standing in front of the fireplace in my parlor with his arms around someone whose face I could not see. A haze clouded my mind’s eye; this wasn’t like my visit from Wolf-Father. I had been aware of myself in my bed, tucked up under my blankets with my eyes closed in sleep, but whatever force had kept me from seeing the world in my dreams before, it had no power over me now. I watched my father and the one he cradled in his arms; recognition tugged at me, and I could not place why. But I was on the cusp of understanding, of knowing that face, when I came awake. That almost-knowledge lingered only until I had opened my eyes to gentle sunlight. When I reached after it, it dissipated like early morning mist, and I forgot it entirely.

I felt a niggling tug against the edges of my awareness. I sensed curiosity warring with strained patience. _You’re distracted._

I opened my eyes to look across the table at my sister, who sat still in her chair with her eyes closed and expression lax. I could still see evidence of yesterday’s exertions in the pallor of her face, but otherwise she looked utterly at peace, as though she had simply nodded off while doing nothing more strenuous than reading. Only her presence resting in the back of my mind betrayed how alert she was. Alert, but deeply fatigued. 

Guilt needled at me. Her exhaustion was my fault. “Sorry,” I said out loud.

My sister’s shoulders sagged with a great sigh, and she opened her eyes to regard me. We had been at meditation in her study for a little under an hour since taking breakfast in the Great Hall, where we’d eaten together next to our father. I’d picked at my food distractedly while trying in vain to summon up more recollection of my dream. It had been a fruitless task. I knew that my dream had been about my father, that it had been important somehow, but the details slid out of sight whenever I tried to focus on them.

Only now, as my sister prepared me for the first of many Skill lessons that were ahead of me, did I remember how quiet and distant my father had been as we’d shared our meal. He’d been distracted, his eyes distant and unfocused on the bits of porridge and savory meat that he had pushed around on his plate without finishing. Or, perhaps mine were the thoughts that had been too far away. Now that I tried, I couldn’t recall whether or not he’d said goodbye to me as he’d taken his leave of the Great Hall. Always before I had spitefully marked the moment that he might speak to me, so that I could be sure to turn my back on him. That I could not recall whether or not he had tried today left a pit of anxiety in my gut. What if he thought I hated him still? It would be my own fault, I realized, but that did not make the fear of it any less keen.

 _Bee?_ There was something appraising and wolf-like in the way my sister’s Skill presence in my mind skirted the edges of my thoughts. I suppose, had she wanted to, it would not have taxed her overmuch to eavesdrop on my private musings and leave me none the wiser about it. But when I looked for her through the thicket of Skill magic, I found her keeping her distance, waiting instead for me to reach out to her. _Shall we begin again?_

 _Okay._ I drew in a breath and tried to hold it lightly in my chest, like a butterfly caged between my fingers. I shut my eyes and thought of sister, of all that I knew and felt when I thought of her. I extended only the smallest tendril of myself out towards her and could not smother my rush of giddy triumph when I felt the successful touch of my mind against hers. _I did it!_ I exclaimed, then added, marveling, _This is so easy!_

She was far more sensible about my accomplishment than I was. _Be careful_ , she cautioned me, but even so I felt an undercurrent of pride in her words. Across the table from me, she extended her hand out palm up. _Put your hand on mine. I’d like for us to begin a focusing exercise together._

The thought suffused me with boredom that I did not bother to shield from her. She smirked at me. _Sorry to disappoint you, but this is not a game._

 _It would be so much better if it was,_ I glumly replied, but reached across the table to rest my hand in hers all the same. At once, the tenuous link between our minds strengthened and seemed to come alive with magic; it was the difference between watching the sea through a glass windowpane, and diving into the surf as the tide came in.

My sister gave my hand a brief squeeze. _I think that is true of many things, she answered me. Now, focus on your breathing--_

Someone rapped on the door to my sister’s study, shattering almost an hour’s worth of near-uninterrupted silence. What followed happened very quickly, within the span of a few seconds, perhaps less. The sharp, bracing sound sent a physical shock through me, and when I jolted upright, my sister did too. From the other side of the door, someone called out, “Nettle?” Riddle’s voice, muffled by the door. For a fraction of a second the walls that bracketed my sister’s thoughts from mine came down, and through our connection I was awash with her memories.

I waded past her regret at how she’d spoken to me yesterday, beyond it, towards old, lingering shame that stretched backward through our history to a time when Mother was still alive and no one else believed I could speak. My sister’s shame was a heavy, palpable thing that clung to the underside of her love for me like a barnacle, and without her walls in place, I could see why:  she had spent years resenting me as the pitiable, speechless burden that would befall her once our father either took complete leave of his senses and left our family again--what did she mean, again?--or passed away. For an instant I saw myself through her eyes:  a fae, unnaturally small and white infant, and then as a spindly youth crouched at my father’s feet in his study, smaller and paler and more alien than I had ever thought to see myself. I felt my sister’s slow burning, bitter misery. Was I the only child ever to be given into her care, if the King would not allow her to marry Riddle?

All of this I knew in an eyeblink. The knowledge saturated me as we sat, dazed, staring at each other from opposite sides of the table. My sister looked pale and heartsick, and while she struggled to find her words, Riddle knocked on the door again. “Nettle, can I open the door?”

“I don’t--” my sister began, lost her voice, and tried again. “Bee, I was wrong. I don’t see you like that anymore.”

There was a part of my heart that insisted I should have been angry with her, that I should have felt betrayed and rejected, but I felt none of those things. I knew this to be strange, and so looked for the anger and hurt that should have been ready to bubble over and leave me miserable and argumentative. It wasn’t that I had somehow learned mastery over these feelings--they simply were not there. I suspect, perhaps, I would have felt them if I hadn’t learned through our Skill joining how truly my sister loved me, too, how her own inability to understand me frustrated and tormented her, how afraid for me she had been when I’d been taken from Withywoods. She’d thought I was lost forever. I was no burden to her now; I was the strong-willed, brave little sister she wished she knew, but didn’t. I was a gift, and she loved me.

“A moment,” I heard her call out to Riddle, rising to her feet. She sent me an uncertain look over her shoulder as she crossed the room towards the door. I came back to my senses in time to recognize I’d said nothing to her, nothing at all, and stood up quickly to follow her a few paces.

“It’s all right,” I told her hastily, and through the link between us, I tried to show her how truly I meant those words. I tried to smile, even though the expression always felt strained on my face. “I know all that already. So…” My voice tapered off. I didn’t know what else to say, and so repeated myself. “It’s all right. I promise.”

I couldn’t parse the expression on my sister’s face as she looked back at me, but her feelings I felt as surely as my own. She smiled tightly and reached out to take my hand again. I let her.

Past the door, Riddle awkwardly asked, “Is this a bad time?”

“No,” my sister said, squeezed my hand, then let go and turned to the door. She opened it and greeted Riddle with a warm smile that quickly chased the puzzled frown off of his face. “I am sorry for making you wait. Bee and I were just finishing up our lesson this morning. I think it went very well, don’t you, Bee?”

This she added as she turned to extend both her smile and the conversation to include me. I found myself smiling back tentatively and fidgeted my fingers in the fabric of my jerkin. “It was quite fun,” I ventured shyly.

“I’m truly glad to hear it,” Riddle replied affably smiled at me, then at my sister. It was impossible not to mark the change in his eyes when he looked at her. The two of them together reminded me of how my father had always looked at my mother, but also of my dream, though I could not place why. He was dressed for the outdoors, his cheeks red from the winter wind and his hair tousled. “And that answers the question I had prepared for both of you, since you both appear well rested and no worse for wear after yesterday’s travails. You are both well, I hope?” He looked between us questioningly.

“My head hurt when I woke up,” I admitted. Recalling the splitting pain at my temples roused a memory of it that ached, though not as acutely. I rubbed the heel of my hand where the pain had been. “But I feel better now. Rested,” I added, even though it wasn’t true. My dreaming had been too vivid for restful sleep, but having acquired a measure of understanding and peace between myself and my sister, I wasn’t eager to disturb it by venturing onto the topic of our father again. I hadn’t forgotten their quarrel over me.

“That is an unfortunate side-effect from such intense Skilling,” my sister told me heavily, and I marked her grimace as she reached up to massage her temple, too. “I think we have more than earned a respite from it for today.”

“That’s just as well,” Riddle replied, hesitated, then said, “because the King requests a word with us. If you are finished with Bee’s lesson, we should report to him now.”

I felt my sister’s weariness across our connection, but she drew herself up and nodded. “Then we shouldn’t keep him waiting.” To me, she said, “I shall see you this evening for dinner, Bee.”

I recalled too clearly my sister’s unhappiness over the King’s refusal to grant her and Riddle permission to marry. I reached out to her. _Shall I stay with you?_ I offered uncertainly.

She took my hand and squeezed it. _No_ , she said and kept the thought gentle. _Some things shouldn’t be shared, especially when it comes to duty to our King. But… thank you, for offering._ And she neatly severed the connection between us as she drew her hand away.

We left my sister’s study together as a trio. They accompanied me as far as my quarters, where Spry awaited to dress me in my winter frock. I watched my sister and Riddle as they walked away, side by side, down the corridor. They matched each other well, I thought, and I puzzled over why the King would not let them marry. I frowned, for I could see no good reason for it.

“Lady Bee,” Spry said and laid a hand on my arm, “shall we dress you in the powder blue today, or the green?”

I turned to tell her that I had no preference, glimpsed the hearthfire crackling invitingly just past her shoulder, and wholly forgot my words. My dream came back to me with vivid clarity this time--my father and his companion standing by the fire, their arms around each other and their faces so close together--and I knew that it had not been a dream at all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz and the Fool make a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Fitz/Fool fix-it fic (say that three times fast, go on, I dare you) that I'm writing to calm the well of ~*~feelings~*~ in me after finishing _Fool's Assassin_. My unending gratitude to varethinsilico of tumblr for her sweet beta skills.
> 
> I've kept details of Fitz and the Fool's rescue of Bee as vague as possible because this story is not about that adventure. I want to write a story that has at least a better than average chance of remaining (mostly) canon compatible after the _Fitz and Fool_ trilogy is concluded.
> 
> \--
> 
> A long chapter! (Seriously, it's long.) Thank you to everyone who continues to stick with this story; your comments and kudos mean everything to me. :)

“Holder Badgerlock to see you, my lord, as you requested.”

“Finally. Come in quickly, and shut that door before you let a draft in.”

The page who admitted me to Chade’s opulent chambers seemed eager to see me swiftly across the threshold, so that he could shut the door behind me and be off before the old statesman could make any more demands of him. I looked over my shoulder to thank the boy for his assistance and found myself about to thank a closed door instead. “Was sending a servant to fetch me really necessary?” I asked as I turned back around.

Chade paused in the middle of rearranging several sheaves of parchment on his table by the large windows. The curtains were drawn back to admit crisp morning light. My mentor looked as vital as a man a quarter of his age, and was attired to fit the part. I supposed the green, elaborately embroidered garment he wore meant that, by Jamaillian standards, he was dressed for the day. “It’s still very early,” he told me mildly. “I didn’t wish to wake you if you were still abed.”

I snorted. “My being asleep has never prevented you from Skilling to me in the past.”

“No,” Chade allowed without a trace of guilt and returned to arranging his scrolls, “but it has guaranteed I’d find you recalcitrant and argumentative. I’d rather you expend those energies elsewhere before coming to speak with me.” He waved absently at the chair across from him.“Sit down, boy. Have some breakfast.”

On the table was a covered dish that could not completely stifle the warm aroma of the fresh bread it contained. The scent of it tempted me, and I was reminded of how little I’d had to eat since Bee had collapsed yesterday. My stomach gave a traitorous rumble that couldn’t be ignored. I took the proffered chair and investigated what was under the dish. Fresh bread, as I suspected, and succulent links of smoked sausage.

It was bribery, but there was no point in letting it go to waste. “I don’t know what information you expect to wring from me that you don’t already know,” I told him, then winced at how caustic the words sounded to my ears. I cleared my throat and added in a tone of voice that I hoped was more congenial, “Surely Nettle must have told you what happened.”

Chade had the decency not to feign confusion or offense. “She did. Even had she not, however, the gossip from the kitchens reached me first.” He took a seat across from me and spent another moment squinting at a scroll in his hands, then set it aside and leaned back in his chair. “I had rather hoped to hear about it from you.” He rested his chin against his knuckles and looked at me squarely

Perhaps someone else might have missed the accusatory note in Chade’s voice. I knew him too well for that. I set my hands on the table and looked back at him frankly. “Chade, that isn’t fair.”

He lifted his free hand artlessly. “Have I blamed you for something?”

“I could not leave Bee while she was still so vulnerable,” I pressed on. “I have barely found the time to sleep, let alone provide you with a report. Save for you and that unfortunate page, I’ve seen virtually no one else since she regained consciousness.”

I turned my attention back to my breakfast and tucked into it, and hoped that Chade would mistake my silence for ill humor. In truth, I felt only cold dread and anxiety. I lied--to protect the Fool, yes, and without question I would gladly do it again. Yet I dreaded this game that he and I now played, whether he realized it or not, deceiving our friends as to his true fate. And to what end? Miserably, I realized I could no longer even be sure that this facade would reach a conclusion that would bring either of us happiness--not if the Fool that I loved had decided he could no longer love me.

And if that was so, I could not blame him. I could only hope that, if nothing else, he would still keep his word to me in that we would, together, tell Bee the truth. My daughter deserved to know that he lived.

It took me some time to register that Chade hadn’t spoken again. I looked across the table at him and found him watching me with a look almost of sadness on his pocked face. I lowered my knife to the plate. “What is it?”

“My boy,” he said after a moment of ponderous silence, “I expected no ‘report.’ Rather, I thought you might--” And here he lifted his hands aimlessly, then dropped them again. “--wish to talk. If not about what happened yesterday, then about any number of other things. You have been back at Buckkeep for some months now. I thought you had intended to return to Withywoods once the repairs to the estate were complete.”

Withywoods. My heart clenched in my chest to think of it. I had made several obligatory journeys back to the estate since it was ransacked during Bee’s abduction; the damage had been extensive but not irreversible, and many of the old household staff had been eager to take the postings I was able to offer them at Buckkeep. Yet it was impossible to walk those halls without remembering all who had died there because I had left them vulnerable. My daughter had yet to speak to me of what she’d seen that day, but I had known trauma of my own at her age. I could guess how it haunted her.

No. Withywoods, the site of my father’s peaceful exile and the home that Molly and I had built together for ourselves, was now a part of my past. I had to look forward from now on, for myself as well as for Bee.

Yet, if that was the case, if that is truly what I was doing--then why was I back at Buckkeep?

I cleared my throat and chafed my hand against my jaw. Stubble scraped against my palm. I needed to shave. “We won’t be going back to Withywoods,” I told Chade. “After what happened there, I can scarce imagine Bee and I picking up the threads of our old life.”

“Then,” Chade said carefully, “you do intend to remain at Buckkeep.”

Firmly, I said, “For now. Chade, I can’t think that far ahead yet. Much has changed recently, and I need to give the dust time to settle before I plot my next course.” He would assume I spoke only of my own readjustment to life in the castle of my youth, to Bee’s first tentative steps on the path that would lead her to full competency as a Skill user. And those things were true. What he could not know was how my indecision and anxiety over the Fool had paralyzed me.

Chade considered me in the spell of silence that settled between us, a thoughtful furrow between his eyebrows. I could see him hunting for the right words that would make up my mind for me and ensure I remained close at hand. I resolved not to give him the chance to assail my flagging confidence with any coercion. “I should be going,” I said and pushed myself up out of the chair. “I hope to have breakfast with Bee this morning in the Great Hall.”

Chade sighed airily, his shoulders slumping. “Very well,” he said. His tone was mild, but he couldn’t completely mask his disappointment as he reached for one of his discarded scrolls. Already I could see his sharp focus swinging away from me and towards some other mystery he was in the midst of unraveling. His voice had an absent-minded quality to it when he said, “Before you leave, lend me your eyes long enough to help me parse this passage. You have a gift for making sense of even the most illegible script.”

His request eased some of the tension that had been drawn between us, and so for a short time I worked with him beside the window. When I managed to extricate myself from the work and his company, I let myself out and closed the door quietly behind me. He didn’t watch me go, but I didn’t for a moment believe he would let the subject of my future at court drop.

The Great Hall was brimming with activity by the time I arrived and made my way past servants and late-comers towards the table where guests of lower rank were seated. Nettle and Bee were already present sitting side by side, quiet but not companionably so. While Nettle ate with mechanical weariness, her eyes unfocused and half-closed from exhaustion, Bee fidgeted with her skirts and looked about herself in some agitation. When she caught and held my eye, I tried to smile at her encouragingly, and felt a surge of hope at the small, answering smile that turned up the corners of her mouth. I felt my throat close up on a swell of emotion. How long had it been since I had last seen that smile?

My approach caught Nettle’s attention, and she drew herself up somewhat from her slouch and favored me with a look considerably cooler than Bee’s. The sight of it tempered my joy, and I felt as though I had traded the good will of one daughter in exchange for the other’s. Our argument from the previous night still rankled me, but already I regretted the words I’d hurled at her in my defensive anger. My heart sank lower in my chest. I regretted much of what I’d said and done the night before. I felt a sharp ache in my heart suddenly, and longed for Nighteyes and his frank wisdom.

“Good morning, Nettle,” I said as I seated myself in the chair next to Bee.

She nodded to me once, then returned to her breakfast. I spent another futile moment trying to think of something else to say to her, some way to cajole her into conversation, but her attention was turned so decisively away from me that I gave up before I’d begun. There was no point in an argument around so many strangers.

As if echoing my thought, Bee tugged her seat closer to mine and leaned close to ask, “Are there always so many people here?”

I left Nettle to her thoughts and focused on Bee instead. “Often, yes,” I said. “Sometimes even more around special occasions, like Spring and Winterfest. Many people from all across Buck Duchy come here just for the celebrations. Your mother and I enjoyed many of them, as children.” I paused, my thoughts drifting back through the years. “Those are merry times for Buckkeep.”

Bee’s persistent fidgeting kept my nostalgia from completely enveloping me. “Why?” I prompted her gently. “Does the crowd bother you?”

Bee shook her head, loosening tufts of gauzy flaxen-colored hair from her braids. “No,” she insisted, but I was unsure. I followed her nervous glance up towards the dais where the royal family sat together, removed from the rest of the court. The seats were half empty, and would remain so until the spring; the Narcheska had taken Integrity on another extended stay to her mothers’ house. Dutiful had not accompanied her, and neither had Prosper, but looking on them as they sat together and chatted affably over their breakfast, they did not seem distressed by her absence. When Kettricken emerged, dressed as simply as a farmer’s wife, and smiled her greeting to them, they rose from their chairs, as we all did, until she was seated, and the atmosphere relaxed around us again.

Kettricken caught my eye and afforded me a brief smile, before she was drawn into conversation with Dutiful and the prince. There was a time when I would have been seated close enough to the royal family as to be seen as theirs, if not one of them. Now, my seat at the lower table was considered a place of honor for Holder Tom Badgerlock and his family, a recognition of his duty to the crown. I begrudged them nothing and accepted the distance and exclusion as necessary.

Dutiful once insisted that those who would have remembered and reviled FitzChivalry were long dead, and had offered to facilitate my return to court. More than simple disagreement with his belief prevented me from taking him up on his offer. At best, I did not wish to become another man’s weapon to threaten Dutiful’s rule. I already knew how horrendous the worst could be.

I sighed, exasperated by the path my own wandering thoughts had taken. I could not get away from the intrigue of this court, even if it was decades dead and in the past. I rubbed the bridge of my nose with two fingers and fixed my eyes on the blue livery of one of the servants making his slow, methodical way down the table with a basket of fresh bread on one arm.

It wasn’t until he turned to skirt around the end of the table that I realized I’d been looking at Candor. A chance backward glance towards my place at the table showed me his bright eyes fixed on mine for a fraction of a second, and in my chest my heart lurched and tripped over itself.

I started up from my seat without thinking, then forced myself to sit again. Candor had already looked away from me and was caught up in a cluster of other servants headed back towards the kitchens. The ceaseless demands placed upon the keep’s serving staff whisked him around a door frame and out of sight. For now, at least, he was beyond my reach, and I cursed myself for not recognizing him sooner. Yet even if I had, what could I have said to him here in the Great Hall?

“Tom?” Nettle’s voice grabbed my attention. I looked back at her to find her regarding me strangely, her eyebrows pulled together in a frown. “Is everything all right?”

I conjured up a compelling excuse to offer her. It had the added benefit of also being the truth. “Chade summoned me for an early morning chat about his Skill scrolls,” I said, then added with a grimace, “among other things.”

Nettle parsed my meaning neatly and sighed. “Oh, he is meddlesome,” she said, speaking softly so that no one else would overhear our conversation. “And so secretive about his research, too. I suspect only the King’s direct order has prevented him from reattempting his last experiment, but he is crafty. I dread it is only a matter of time before he discovers an alternative means of accomplishing that goal, without Steady’s assistance this time.”

I feared she was correct, but bit my tongue against expressing my concerns for Chade’s safety. _We had best not discuss this in front of Bee,_ I Skilled to her as carefully as I could. _I don’t want to frighten her._

The tone of my eldest daughter’s Skilling was considerably cooler than her voice had been. _The Skill is dangerous. The sooner she grasps that, the better._ Nevertheless, Nettle glanced guardedly at Bee, who now sat between us with her cheek pillowed in one hand while she pushed her breakfast around on her plate. Nettle seemed to decide that whatever else she had to ask me could wait. Instead, as though picking up the strands of our private discussion, she said, “Bee and I are going to begin our Skill lessons this morning after breakfast.”

A moderately safer topic. “That is a good idea,” I said. Bee straightened in her seat, blinking and looking between us as though she had only just realized we were discussing her. I offered her another smile. “Are you looking forward to your lessons?

“I don’t know,” Bee replied in a quiet, mousy voice, frowned to herself, then at Nettle. “Will I have the terrible headaches again? My head hurt so badly when I woke up today.”

“It is possible, but we shall be careful,” Nettle assured her, and I saw how the confidence in her voice smoothed the small furrow from my youngest daughter’s brow. Bee nodded to herself, and then grew quiet again. When I reached towards her tentatively, I discovered her to be so caught up in her thoughts that to disturb her felt unseemly.

I doubt she sensed my prying, but I was careful as I withdrew my awareness from her. I sensed Nettle watching me again, her lips pinched in thought. She looked so like Molly on the cusp of picking an argument with me that I was at once arrested by how like her my eldest daughter had become, and prematurely exhausted. I didn’t have the fortitude for another confrontation, and so even if my early departure might raise some eyebrows, it was preferable to a public argument.

“I have errands I should run before the day grows too long,” I informed her before she could speak. I abandoned my half-empty bowl of porridge and got to my feet. “I do hope your lesson goes well today.” Nettle looked at me askance, but did not question my explanation. I offered my farewells to Bee as well, but she was so occupied with her thoughts that she gave me little more than a noncommittal noise of acknowledgement.

I took my leave from the Great Hall as unobtrusively as I could, attracting only a few idle glances as I went. Holder Tom Badgerlock had already established a habit of coming and going on his own at odd intervals, and so my departing so soon after my arrival would not stir up much gossip. When I came to a stop in the corridor with the Great Hall behind me, I felt a moment of gnawing, anxious directionlessness, for I had no errands to run, no pressing obligations that awaited my attention. I turned my face up towards one of the vaulted windows and let the thin warmth of diffused spring sunlight clear my head.

I went in search of the Fool.

It was a futile endeavor. The Fool had always been veritably cat-like in his ability to ensure that he could not be found if he did not wish to be. Nevertheless, I passed the afternoon and the early evening conducting as discreet a search as I could manage, paying a visit first to the kitchens with the excuse of requesting more of the herbal tea that had been brought up for Bee the night before. While the cook fired off a series of inquiries about my daughter’s health and well-being, I feigned interest in watching the servants gather up the herbs for me, but caught no glimpse of Candor. After pocketing the herb sachet and making my gracious goodbyes, I let my feet carry me down more old stone corridors winding throughout the keep, past rooms that were being aired out for the influx of visitors guaranteed to arrive with the spring thaw. I tried to steal glimpses inside many open doors, but there was no sign of him at work at any of those routine tasks. Though I felt wretched for doing it, I even stole into Chade’s old study on the off chance that the Fool may have sought some refuge there, but there was not even evidence that Chade himself had visited the cramped space in some time. Dust collected on his desk and the old papers there. I let myself out in silence.

I was reluctant to search near the stables for fear of the emotions that might rouse, for I had taken pains not to visit Burrich’s domain more that I must since coming back to Buckkeep. But part of me wondered if that might not be reason enough for the Fool to venture there, and if so, it was as logical a place to search as any other. Yet I was halfway down the path to the stables before I stopped myself, considering. If the Fool was not yet prepared to seek me out, then I should consider what might come of rushing this conversation before he was ready to have it.

 _I am surprised. You do learn after all_ , came a chiding thought that could just as easily have come from my wolf. I snorted, chafed my hands together to warm them, and turned around to begin the hike back towards the keep. The fullness of night had almost caught up with me at some stage during my search, and with it the bitter cold of Buck winter. My face felt wind burnt and numb by the time I hastened through the castle gates and back into the shelter of its strong stone walls. I nodded to the guards who acknowledged me, then began my trek up to my quarters. But at some point, and I cannot pinpoint when it happened, my destination shifted.

I found myself ascending a spiraling staircase up, and up, and up, to the spacious tower chamber that my grandfather, King Shrewd, had long ago gifted to the Fool as his private sanctuary, when he had been little more than a child and the court jester. I could not explain even to myself what brought me to this room, of all places, save for a desire to be in a place where the Fool had so often found solace. I knew it was unlikely that he would voluntarily return here, not after what Regal and his monstrous coterie had done to it when it had still been his home. Nevertheless, it had been foreign and strange, bright and beautiful like the Fool himself. I felt pulled there as if by instinct and tried the latch, fully expecting it to be locked. When it gave under my touch, I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The chamber had been cleared of its furnishings decades ago, but errant pieces of sun-bleached fabric still lay in wrinkled heaps near the walls. A small collection of exotic glass baubles had been stacked up in crates and stashed under a carved wooden table covered by gossamer cobwebs. There were no lit wall sconces nor burning candelabra, but the full moon pouring its light in through the large glass window did more than enough to fully illuminate the room.

The Fool had folded himself neatly onto one of two faded rugs still remaining in the room. He sat facing the window, but in the glass reflection he caught and held my gaze. “Don’t you ever knock?”

The wrongness of this encounter cut me to the quick, like and unlike pain. I started to take a step back. “I’m sorry,” I said hastily. “For some reason, I did not believe I would find you here. Though that seems a ridiculous thing to believe, now that I’ve said it out loud. I’ll leave you.”

“No. Fitz, wait.”

I stopped, the rush of my pulse roaring in my ears, and watched the Fool from where I hovered on the threshold. The Fool turned to look at me, his face tired and unguarded and free of the ochre he used for his disguise. After a moment, he closed his eyes and looked back towards the window, but patted the rug beside him with one hand. “Come,” he said so softly that I almost didn’t hear him speak at all. “Sit with me.”

I felt beckoned and indulged, like my presence taxed the Fool’s patience to its very limits but could not be avoided. My longing to be near him shamed me as acutely as my impatience did, and it was an effort to make my legs move slowly as I stepped into the chamber and closed the door behind me. The sound of wood against stone, the fastening of the latch, the creaky hinge, all resonated too loudly in this empty room, and had it been on any other floor, I would have feared that the noise would draw eavesdroppers. But King Shrewd had granted this sanctuary to the Fool for its secluded nature. Even now, I doubted it ever saw much through traffic. No one had even thought to utilize it for storage space.

I took slow, measured steps across the chamber to where the Fool sat, cross-legged with his hands curled into fists in his lap to still their fidgeting. His eyes stayed on the distant lights of Buckkeep Town visible through the window, and only shifted to look at me as soon as I’d seated myself beside him, elbows on my knees.  The weight of his gaze on mine felt immense, filled with questions, accusations, and expectation. I could meet his eyes for only a moment, before my guilt forced me to look aside.

“I scarcely know what to say,” I admitted to the faded patterns on the rug under my boots, “save that I did not come here seeking you out.”

“I know that,” the Fool replied quietly, still watching me.

“Truly, Fool, I regret the words I spoke to you as we parted last night. They were ill-conceived, and I should never have said them.”

“I know that, too.”

A lilt of something almost like humor ran like a thread through his quiet voice. I looked at him finally, torn between irritation and some other, warmer feeling that had kindled inside me at his tone. I glimpsed the subtlest of unkind, cat-like smiles at the corner of his mouth. I stared at him. “Are you laughing at me?”

The Fool’s smile widened, his eyes sharp. “You do often make it easy.”

Baffled, I sat beside him in silence and said nothing. It had been some time since I had been on the receiving end of even the mildest of the Fool’s barbs. Yet before the ache could set in, the hard edge to his stare softened. He reached out and took hold of my hand, threaded our fingers together. I could not help but squeeze his hand in mine.

“Fitz,” he began softly, “you must know that I still love you, as I ever have. Nothing so inconsequential as time or distance could change that for me. Not when it comes to you.”

Joy suffused me like bright summer sunlight, clearing away the shadows of doubt that had been converging on me since this morning. I opened my mouth to speak, and could not stop myself even as the Fool held up his hand to quiet me. “Fool, please, I need to tell you how I--”

“Please, stop. You said plenty last night,” he said, and he spoke so abruptly that my throat closed up. When I did not interrupt him again, he took a breath and went on. “It is my turn now. Let me tell you how I am feeling, Fitz. Then, when I am finished, we will see if you are still prepared to say the words I suspect you were about to speak just now.”

His facade of control was almost impeccable, but I saw his throat bob in a nervous swallow. I had no other option but to remain silent and draw comfort from his hand still clasped in mine. If he intended to reject me, I told myself, he would not invite even this small gesture of intimacy.

The Fool gathered his courage in the ensuing silence, staring hard at some point past my shoulder. He looked, to my eyes, as though he braced himself for heartbreak. “You cannot know,” he began, “how long I have dreamed of what this moment might be like. For you to look at me with desire, for you to want from us something beyond our friendship as it is--a friendship you know I will always cherish. That will never be at risk between us, Fitz. I dare to hope you require no reassurances from me in that regard.

“As for the content of my dreams, I will spare you from my most juvenile fantasies, though I won’t pretend that I have not retreated to them in times of hardship, in search of some…  balm for my spirit.” His soft voice tapered off momentarily. He shifted so that he could face me and cradled my hand in his, thumbs moving over the ridge of my knuckles. I held my tongue with difficulty but resolved not to interrupt him, no matter how desperate I was to offer him reassurance.

He dropped his eyes to my hand and made a derisive noise somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. When he spoke again, I suddenly wished I had interrupted him after all, for his mercilessly honest words turned my insides cold and roused my deepest shame. “In my dreams,” he went on, “it is no hardship at all to forget the words you said to me long ago that have colored my every waking thought of you. Even of myself. I won’t recall your words for you.” He met my gaze. “I trust I don’t need to.”

“No,” I agreed in a flat, expressionless voice, and had to look away from him as I recalled our confrontation in Lord Golden’s chambers. My throat was suddenly beyond parched, and I struggled to swallow. “I remember."

I felt the Fool’s cool fingertips touch the edge of my jaw. He gently turned my face towards his again. When at last I could drag my eyes up to his, he offered me a thin, warm smile. “I forgive you,” he said, and brushed his fingers across my cheek before letting his hand fall away. “I forgave you decades ago. Fitz, I know you love me.” Almost cheekily, he added, “Why else would you take me at my word, time and time again, and join me on my mad quests to save the world? Not for the fun of it, surely.”

His mild jest cut some of the tension from the somber atmosphere between us and brought a smile back to my lips. I laughed a little. “Perhaps next time, fate will settle for our saving a small town instead. Or just the village bakery.”

The Fool arched his eyebrows. “Or helpless kittens stuck in trees?” he suggested.

My back smarted at the thought. “Only if you intend to be their rescuer,” I replied dryly. “I’m too old for climbing trees.”

The Fool smiled, but I knew that we could not carry on this way forever. There was still much left for us to discuss. I shook my head some. “Fool, if you know that I love you…” I began leadingly, but the Fool held up his hand to stop me.

“Let’s not conflate love with desire,” he said, then added with a softer smile, “though I believe it is one of life’s rare treasures when the two go hand in hand with each other.”

His smile faded, and he pursed his lips together before speaking again. “You were adamant that you could never look at me with love and desire both, Fitz. What has changed, between then and now?” I saw him considering his words, as though he weighed how much he truly wanted to hear my answer. Then, gently, he told me, “I understand how overwhelming it can be to have someone you love returned to you, after believing them lost forever. You believed me dead, yet I am not. I am alive, and I have come back.” He paused. A look of wonderment stole across his features in the time it took for him to draw another breath and admit, “I have come back to you. Because at your side I’ve known my life’s greatest joy, even with all of the grief and tragedy that has come with it. I would not replace even the darkest of those days with a thousand peaceful ones, if it meant that you and I had never met. That I would never have the chance to know you, to suffer alongside you, to laugh with you. To love you.”

I took his hand in both of mine and squeezed. “Fool,” I murmured, but no more than that, for I could tell that he was not finished speaking. He reached out to stroke the backs of his fingers across my cheek; I wondered if anyone else in his life had ever looked at him with the same precious tenderness that I saw in his eyes now.

Then he drew his fingers away and looked down. “I accepted long ago that your feelings for me would not change. I am content with what we share, Fitz. I told you, I would never ask anything of you that you did not want to give me.” When he looked into my eyes again, I saw how he curbed his expectations; he could not give himself permission to hope for more. Yet the longing was there in the way his eyes lingered on my mouth. His voice, when he spoke again, had become a thick whisper. “Please, don’t tempt me with my heart’s desire if this is, for you, just relief and passion temporarily overwhelming your common sense. If this isn’t what you truly want, then I want no part of it, either.”

He could only hold my gaze for a moment longer, before he looked down instead to watch the path his fingers made across the back of my hand. Moments ago I had taken such pleasure in that touch. Now, as I sifted through his words, I could feel nothing but shock. I spoke slowly. “You think I have only convinced myself that I desire you,” I said. I stared at his inscrutable expression, willing him to tell me that no, I was wrong, I had misunderstood.

He did not correct me. My shock transformed into a stab of dismay. “That isn’t so,” I blurted out in a voice rough from emotion. I brought his hand up so that I could press his palm to my chest, as though that touch alone could clarify everything between us. “I know my heart, and I know the truth of these feelings. How can I prove to you that they are real? What must I do, what must I say, to make you believe me?”

The Fool’s eyes were fixed on his hand against my chest. The moonlight spilling across his angular features threw the jagged edges of his scars into sharp relief when he furrowed his brow. He slid his hand up my jerkin to my collarbone; his touch was a slow caress that near ignited me, but I drew in a breath and struggled to keep still. He was so dark now that it was impossible to see whether he blushed, but when his fingers brushed against the skin of my neck, he abruptly drew his hand away from me. Impossibly, I saw his eyes had filled with tears. “You must at least consider that it is a possibility,” he replied quietly and took another calming breath.

He unfolded himself from where he sat on the floor and walked away from me towards the window. I pretended not to see him press his sleeve discreetly to his eyes. I got to my feet with less grace and took a few small steps after him. “Why?” I demanded, struggling not to sound as frustrated and baffled as I felt. “Why should I consider the possibility of something that I know isn’t true?” A terrible thought came upon me abruptly enough to steal the breath out of my lungs. “Don’t you trust me?”

When he didn’t speak, I thought to myself, there, that is the crux of it, and knew a moment of acute despair, for if he did not trust me then all the love in the world would not be enough to make things right between us. But then I heard his small intake of breath, and realized he struggled to master his feelings before speaking again. “This has never been about trust, Fitz. I trust you. I trust that, right now, you believe your feelings are real. I trust that you would never intentionally seek to hurt me.”

“Of course I would never hurt you. Fool, I don’t understand.” I could not bear to have this conversation with his back turned to me. I came to stand at his side. “Please,” I begged, “please look at me.”

He did, albeit so unwillingly I regretted that I asked. It was clear to me how much he did not wish me to see the tears he could not check, nor how difficult it was for him to speak past the emotion in his chest. I wanted desperately to put my arms around him and offer him some comfort, but if he did not even want me to look at him, I was certain he did not want me to touch him, either. Helpless, I spread my hands to either side. “I wish we were still Skill linked as we were so long ago,” I said, “so I could have you know my mind. You would not doubt me, if you could feel what I feel.”

He managed a humorless little laugh that stuck in his throat. “No doubt that is so,” he replied, “but we do not have that option available to us anymore. So instead I must ask myself, ‘Should he accept me tonight, and then change his mind about me tomorrow morning, how resilient is my heart? Can I endure that rejection from him twice in one lifetime?’” He shut his eyes and this time didn’t bother concealing the action when he blotted at his lash line with his sleeve again. Afterwards, he seemed to have regained a measure of control over his voice, but his face wore an expressionless neutrality born from stifling too much riotous feeling for too long. “Perhaps the answer is that I do not want to know.”

In the silence that followed, I had no idea what to say to him. Wielding words, for good or ill, had always been the Fool’s purview, not mine. So I said nothing, but stood beside him at the window and stared down towards the lights of Buckkeep Town. My confidence in my feelings had not faltered, but my love for the Fool had suddenly become a raw wound in my soul. Beyond that pain, that love, I felt fear, too. I was too terrified of realizing the Fool’s fears to turn my gaze inward, to truly consider my feelings for him with the ruthlessness that he seemed to require.

Perhaps it was the wolf in me that did not see the point of such scrutiny. I loved the Fool, now, and the Fool loved me, now. What good did we do each other by borrowing trouble from tomorrow? An overly simple thought for me to think, I realized. Of the two of us, the Fool stood to lose far more than I, should his fears turn out to be correct. Was that reason enough not to try?

“And if you are wrong?” I asked. The Fool turned his gaze to mine. The whites of his eyes were reddened from his tears, but I could tell that I held his attention. I sensed a chance there and seized upon it. Earnestly, I said, “What if I am right? If this is not a risk you are willing to take, Fool, then Eda knows I cannot in good faith ask it of you. But...”

I let my words trail off, hesitated, and then offered him my hand. I didn’t touch him. I waited for  him to reach for me instead--and he did. Slowly, tentatively, like one of us might break if he moved too quickly, he slid his palm against mine. I brought his hand up to my face and, watching him for the slightest hint of discomfort or displeasure, gently kissed the inside of his slender, narrow wrist, just below the curve of his palm and above his racing pulse. I watched the Fool watching me, his wide eyes transfixed on my face. I followed the contours of his parted lips with my eyes; his mouth looked invitingly soft. A jolt of desire rocked me, and I could think of nothing but how desperately I wanted him in my arms again. I kissed his palm, then brought it up to rest against my cheek. “If I am right,” I spoke quietly, “is it not worth it to try?”

“Yes,” he breathed, and I felt a flash of horror at his rejection. But then he blinked and shook his head, said, “Wait, that’s not--let me try again,” and stepped towards me. I had forgotten just how much strength the Fool’s wiry arms held until he encircled my shoulders with them, buried his fingers in my hair, and kissed me.

His passion was its own force of nature, and willingly, I gave myself over to it, let it feed on and be fed by my own. The Fool did not tremble and hold himself apart from me, but molded us flush against each other, his chest to my chest, and gave himself leave to touch me. I felt his fingers slide down the bare skin of my neck and along the angle of my jaw. He traced my cheekbones with both thumbs, followed the planes of my face to where he kissed my mouth, and then at last he drew back just enough to catch his breath, his brow resting against mine.

Giddiness beyond joy, beyond want, filled me. If any part of me had doubted the sincerity of my feelings, the veracity of my desire, those doubts had been firmly laid to rest. I needed the Fool; as my friend, yes, but as a lover, too, and I could not bear to have him so close and not touch him. I carded my fingers through his loose hair and tilted my face to press my mouth against his cheekbone. I circled my arm around his narrow waist and held him to me, breathing in the scent of his skin, so familiar, and yet its visceral effect on me still so new.  “Oh, Fool,” I said senselessly and felt a shiver run the length of him.

“I’ve wanted this.” I felt his whisper against my skin as much as I heard it. “For so long… Do you have any idea how long I have wanted you to see me? I never believed that you could. Not like this.”

“But I do,” I told him, for what else could I say? I reluctantly drew back just enough so that I could see his face again, and was relieved to see that his tears had stopped. He looked at me wonderingly and seemed to marvel at the new freedom he had to touch me as he willed. His hand rested against the side of my neck, then lifted to smooth errant strands of my hair out of my eyes. He touched my crooked nose, traced the scars that Regal had given me.

I reached up and took his hand. I kissed each of his knuckles in turn. “Do you still doubt me?”

He covered his mouth with his free hand, but I saw his smile in the brightness of his eyes, the softness at their corners.  He curled his fingers against his lips. “You do make a compelling argument,” he said with a breathless little laugh, and I could not have checked my grin even if had I wanted to. But then his smile faded by a fraction, and he regarded me with growing seriousness. “What now, Fitz?” he asked quietly.

It was a trial to turn my thoughts toward anything other than how wonderful it felt to have the Fool in my arms, but I knew he was right to ask such questions. I let our clasped hands rest against my chest. “We choose a path forward, together,” I replied, already knowing my answer would be too simplistic for him. The Fool gave me a frank look that I answered with a helpless shrug. “What? You are the Prophet, not I,” I pointed out.

“A Prophet who no longer speaks prophesies,” the Fool said, then frowned. “Not that my visions could provide us the guidance to navigate these waters.”

A thought from earlier in the day came upon me abruptly. “Bee still doesn’t know that you are alive,” I reminded him. “Nor does anyone else in our circle. You said you would go with me to tell Bee the truth, but what of the others? What of Nettle, and Kettricken? What of Riddle and Chade, and the King? I trust that we can keep your presence a secret from them for a time, but for how long must we do this?”

“What will we tell them?” the Fool asked. More quietly, he added, “And what should we tell them about you and I?”

His question caught me off-guard, and to my credit, I thought better than to give voice to the response that came to me most quickly. _Why should we tell them anything at all?_ I had been on the cusp of saying, and as I thought on those words, I realized that it had not once occurred to me that what the Fool and I shared should ever be anyone else’s business but our own. Balking, I looked back at him and frowned. “I don’t know,” I admitted and shook my head. “I think they will accept that you are alive without much explanation. As for the rest…”

“I need time,” the Fool said, not quite interrupting me, but speaking before I had a chance to give voice to the rest of my thoughts.  He laid both his palms against my chest. “As do you, truthfully. Let us keep going as we have been, for now. If we are to do this, I will need to make plans that include an unobtrusive exit for Candor. That cannot be done hastily, or it will attract attention. For tonight, let us speak with Bee. I imagine she will have finished her dinner by now.”

Our passion from moments ago had left his livery slightly askew and rumpled. I tugged it straight and smoothed the wrinkles out of the fine blue fabric, then reluctantly let my hands drop back to my sides.“That is likely,” I agreed. “Can you get to my rooms without attracting notice? I can fetch Bee from dinner and meet you there.”

“A servant’s livery is a veritable cloak of invisibility within the castle walls,” the Fool replied with a spark of his usual humor glittering in his eyes. “No one will note my passing.”

He hesitated, then leaned close to me and kissed the corner of my mouth. It was a brief touch, and he wisely pulled away before I could lean into him and ask for more. “Wait enough time for me to clear the stairwell and be out of the main corridor,” he instructed me, “then follow.” Then he let go of my hand, turned, and walked away from me. Within two strides he’d adopted Candor’s slightly bow-legged step, his shoulders hunched so as to present the illusion of a curved spine. At the door to the chamber, Candor looked back at me over his shoulder, and became my Fool again when he smiled. Then he slipped out and closed the door behind him.

I waited, listening to his retreating steps, and then counted out the seconds, until I felt enough time had passed that no one who might glimpse me in the corridor would associate me with the servant who preceded me. Then I left the room, and went in search of Bee.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bee escapes the castle to find a few moments to herself, and encounters an old friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Fitz/Fool fix-it fic (say that three times fast, go on, I dare you) that I'm writing to calm the well of ~*~feelings~*~ in me after finishing _Fool's Assassin_. My unending gratitude to varethinsilico of tumblr for her sweet beta skills.
> 
> I've kept details of Fitz and the Fool's rescue of Bee as vague as possible because this story is not about that adventure. I want to write a story that has at least a better than average chance of remaining (mostly) canon compatible after the _Fitz and Fool_ trilogy is concluded.
> 
> \--
> 
> ...hi! Long time no update. _FQ_ kind of threw me off course, but I think I know where I'm going with this story again, now. Please accept, though, that it is going to diverge from the established canon of _FQ_ a bit, though I will find ways going forward to incorporate the new information introduced by the latest book. Thank you so much to all of you who have continued to comment, give kudos, and in general just be so wonderfully patient with me as I write this story.

I fled the castle.

I don’t know if anyone marked my hasty flight through the halls of Buckkeep Castle as anything more than the playful exuberance that all children demonstrate when scampering off to play. In truth, I barely noticed the looks that followed me. I could think only of the rush of my own swelling emotion, which was so big and overwhelming and made up of so many different feelings that the act of naming any one of them was beyond what I could do. I knew only that I felt terribly betrayed by the memory of my father holding someone else in his arms as he had always held my mother.

I found my way out of the castle through the kitchens, earning myself a few startled exclamations from the kitchen staff who wondered what little Lady Badgerlock was doing out and about so soon after her recent ailment. What was I looking for? Did my papa know where I was? Did I need help?

“No,” I answered almost tearfully each time, heedless of the dismayed and concerned looks and responses that this earned me. I backed out of the kitchens, nearly tripping over a serving boy on his way towards the Great Hall, and then ran through the open door as soon as I reached it.

A cold, bitter winter wind bit into my face as soon as I was outside, and I felt the force of it tearing my hair loose from my braids and whipping my frock about my legs. I rushed down the snowy, icy slope towards the stables; one of the large wooden doors stood slightly ajar, spilling a narrow line of warm, inviting light across the snow. Bunching my frock around myself to block out the chill, I ducked inside and then shuffled quickly into a corner, in hopes of staying out of the way. I needn’t have bothered. Aside from one perplexed-looking stable hand who blinked quizzically at me and then turned back to tending an ill hound, the stables appeared absent of other people.

“Wait there, please, little miss,” he said in a voice that was both gruff and kind, “I’ve got both hands busy at the moment.”

 _Bee?_ My sister’s Skilling reached me abruptly. Her alarm was palpable, like something brittle and shaking. _FitzVigilant just spoke to me. He tells me he saw you sprinting through the corridors in tears, but that when he tried to speak to you, you ran off as though you couldn’t hear him. What’s wrong? Are you alright?_

That I might have rushed past Lant without seeing him, let alone hearing anything he might’ve said to me, wasn’t surprising, but the thought did give me a moment’s pause. For a few awful seconds, I felt myself floundering helplessly, unsure of what to say--either to my sister, who pressed on my thoughts anxiously as she awaited my response, or to the stable hand who even now had straightened up, dusting off his hands, and turned to look at me with kindly expectation.

“What can I do for you, miss?” he asked again, patient.

My sister was less so. _Bee!_

I balled my hands into fists and pressed them into my eyes. I could already feel the dull ache of the oncoming Skill headache, but there was no other way to reassure my sister. _I’m at the stables. I’m fine. Please just leave me alone._ Then I shut her out, and regretted immediately how curt I must have sounded. And so soon after we had mended things back together again. It wasn’t fair--why must things always be so difficult?

The stable hand’s footfalls on the packed earth and straw-covered ground let me know that he was approaching me. Then he knelt in front of me, wearing a frown on his weathered face. “Has something happened, little miss?” he asked me. Then, as though he only just realized the fine cut of my garments, he asked again, “Is there someone up at the keep I can send for, to come and take you back home?”

My awareness of my sister pressing gently against my Skill persisted for only a moment more, before she retreated from me. I felt another stab of guilt for pushing her away, but couldn’t deny also the sensation of relief that swept over me. With the pressure gone, my upset felt less acute, and my words came back to me, slowly. When next I saw her, I told myself, I’d tell her how sorry I was and make things right again. I swallowed and lowered my hands from my face, then shook my head. “No,” I replied after a few seconds of careful breathing. “No, please don’t send for anyone yet. I just--I have come to see my horse.” I shifted from one foot to the other uncomfortably. “She’s a gray-dappled mare, with a white hoof.”

“Ah, you are Priss’s mistress, then.” The stable hand seemed to take me at my word. He pushed himself up to his feet and motioned for me to follow him further into the stables. “Come this way, Lady Badgerlock. I’ll take you to her.”

He led me through the stables, and I followed him with my hands tight in front of me, looking at and listening to the animals around us. The sights and smells and sounds of the place settled around me like a warm blanket, soothing the rough edges of my upset until it was just an uncomfortable lump in my heart; with a twinge of melancholy, I realized it put me in mind of the stables back at Withywoods, and my horse riding practice with Per. Thinking about the estate as I had last seen it, overrun with angry men who had used their swords against people I had known all my life, tapped a vein of deep sadness inside me. My unhappiness over what I had seen my father doing retreated from me, but in its place came an old sadness that seemed to get worse the more I was surrounded by things that reminded me of home.

None of what transpired at Withywoods would have happened if I had been more like my sister, like my mother and father. If I had been born normal, like everyone else, no one would have razed an entire estate to the ground in order to capture me. It was all my fault. I felt tears rush to my eyes, pain in my chest, and my lip betrayed me by quivering.

“And there she is,” the stable hand declared before the tears could burst from me. I hastily wiped at my eyes and looked up at him, but he had already wandered over to the stall where my Priss was stabled. Her gray-dappled head extended contentedly out of her stall to nose at his hand as he approached her, but when she saw me, she pricked up her ears and whickered a greeting.

I came toward her and held out my hand for her to against. Her breath was hot and smelled of the grass and hay that she’d been fed, clean and warm. I smiled and stroked the soft velvet of her nose. “Hello, Priss,” I greeted her quietly.

The stable hand regarded us approvingly. “I think she’s missed you,” he remarked, “though I’m told she gets on well with the other horses. Fleeter in particular,” he added, nodding to the roan mare stabled beside her. “They’re thick as thieves, those two.”

“It’s good to have friends,” I said, and felt inexplicably saddened as soon as I’d said the words.

“Aye,” he agreed, sounding almost wistful. “That is so.”

At that moment, a black and white cat with a kink in his tail dropped down from the rafters and landed lightly on his feet beside me. He had a wriggling mouse gripped tightly and possessively between his teeth, and shot a wary look at the stable hand before turning a familiar glare on me. I let out a shocked gasp. “ _Cat!_ ”

 _You left,_ he accused me.

I flung myself to the ground beside him and gathered him up into my arms anyway, and though he growled and was forced to let his prey escape from his jaws, he tolerated my embrace and didn’t try to squirm free. I held him close to my chest and buried my face in his sleek fur; since I’d last seen him he’d grown bigger, putting on bulk and muscle. He must have been well fed at Buckkeep. The relief I felt at feeling his rangy weight in my arms surprised and overwhelmed me--I had missed him.  “ _I thought you were dead_ ,” I blurted out.

Behind me, the stable hand asked, “Ratter is a friend of yours?”

I turned to look up at him. “Ratter?” I asked, and when I loosened my grip on the cat, he wriggled free just enough to hop lightly to the ground in front of me and fastidiously groom his ruffled fur. I looked at him. “ _Is your name Ratter?_ ”

 _No._ The cat continued grooming himself.

The stable hand looked between us for a moment, then nodded. “That’s what we’ve taken to calling him around here, anyway, but you know how cats are. Hard to know their names if they don’t see fit to share them with you.” He sighed and shook his head. “Still, he’s a damn good mouser. He came up with the rest of the livestock from Withywoods, come to think of it, so it shouldn’t surprise me that you’d recognize him.” Smiling, he said, “I’m glad we were able to reunite you with your friend, Lady Badgerlock.”

“I was so sure he was gone forever,” I replied, and found that I believed the words as I said them. I reached out to sleek my hand over the cat’s ears and was rewarded for the gesture by the firm, affectionate press of his head into my palm.

The stable hand begged off to tend to some other duties, then, and left me to sit quietly beside Priss’s stall with the cat for company. Dimly, I remembered that I was still upset at my father, and at myself, but my relief at finding the cat from my secret room at Withywoods not only alive, but also thriving, seemed to put me on enough even footing to steady the rest of my emotions. I tugged my knees up to my chest, wrapped my arms around them, and watched the cat as he stretched out his lanky limbs and then sat to groom his paws. “ _How did you get here?_ ”

 _You saw me. I jumped down._ As though to demonstrate his agility, he gave the whole of himself a long-legged stretch.

“ _Not from the rafters_ ,” I replied. “ _I mean from Withywoods. From--the place where I left you._ ”

I felt his indignation at recalling my perceived abandonment, and also from something else. He took a few steps toward me and placed a paw on my leg. _Lap,_ he said, and I realized he meant it as an instruction. I stretched out my legs in front of me, well aware I was getting dirt on my leggings, but couldn’t bring myself to care. The cat hopped into my lap, turned a circle, and then settled down as a comfortable, warm weight on my legs.

I stroked his ears and sleeked back his fur again. “ _How did you do it_?”

 _In a box_ , he answered and angled his ears back dramatically. _I hid in the secret place. Then a man trapped me in a box and put me in a wagon. Now I am here._ His tail gave an agitated little twitch, and he kneaded the claws of one paw firmly into my leg. _You left_ , he reminded me.

Through his eyes I saw the memory, and recognized Cinch’s face as he captured the cat and coerced him into a wicker traveling kennel. It had been a long and miserable journey from Withywoods to Buckkeep for an animal so accustomed to going where he wanted, whenever he wanted. And frightening, too. The world seemed very wide to him now, and he struggled to understand it. I couldn’t explain it to him; I barely understood it myself.

“ _I’m sorry._ ” I let my hand rest on his back. “ _I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to leave at all. The people who came to Withywoods that day took me away and wouldn’t let me go back home._ ”

My answer seemed to be enough to satisfy him. He loosened his claws from my leggings and let his ears adopt a more contented, relaxed posture, still perked alertly but no longer demonstrating his displeasure. After a few moments, a purr rumbled in his chest, and the soothing rhythm of it made my eyelids heavy. I struggled to keep them open.

 _Sleep_ , the cat suggested, his head tilted back so that I could see the lambent gleam of his eyes, and I knew that the thought was as much a suggestion to me as it was a statement about his own intentions. He rested his chin atop the white socks of his forepaws and shifted a bit to get comfortable, his tail curling around himself. _Sleep now. When you wake, you’ll feel better._

Priss lowered her muzzle to whuffle at my hair gently, and the warmth of her breath and the steady weight of the cat on my lap was more soothing to me than anything else I’d yet experienced at Buckkeep Castle. I thought of the candles that my mother would light at my bedside each night before I went to sleep in the room of my childhood. This moment--listlessness, but without the helpless, afraid feelings that came with it--was just as all of those moments had been.

  
“ _Sleep_ ,” I agreed with the purring cat, already drowsing. And I did.


End file.
